


Wings

by brightly_lit



Series: Feathers [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Dom/sub, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Romance, Temporary Character Death, Wing Kink, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam closed the gates to heaven and hell to prevent the apocalypse, stranding Castiel in the world.  The best thing to come out of that was the epic love that blossomed between Dean and Castiel.  Now the gate to heaven is open again, the apocalypse is back on, and Dean is willing to do anything--anything--to save Cas from destruction at the hand of his brother Michael.</p><p>"He knew if he had it all to do over again, he’d just do the same thing, because he was Dean Winchester, and he couldn’t make another choice, for the same old reasons: love, and loyalty, and family."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wings

**Author's Note:**

> -I love all the hunters, so they're alive in this version.
> 
> -I'm a big fan of canon, so besides the hunters all being alive, I adhere to canon as much as I can in this series while still telling the tale. The characters are their same old selves. Plus, even where I diverged from canon, I like to make it come back around as much as possible. 
> 
> -This is part 5 in a series, quite possibly the final part, though I've said that before and I really love Dean and Cas's relationship in this series, so who knows. I've carefully written every story in the series so that it could stand on its own. With this story, I think I managed to include all the facts (which is getting harder after five stories' worth of growth and events), but the one thing I can't communicate by "throwing in an explainer" is why and how much they love each other. Thus, you might like to read at least one of the other installments in the series first so it can give a feel for that:
> 
> Feathers http://archiveofourown.org/works/674207  
> Human http://archiveofourown.org/works/690611  
> Union http://archiveofourown.org/works/713990  
> One http://archiveofourown.org/works/808364

Dean sat at the kitchen table, watching Cas with open lust as he made breakfast.  He observed Cas’s ingenuous expression as he tried in vain to open the package of bacon and finally, with a guilty little glance around to see if he was being watched by anyone besides Dean, cheated and used his angel powers to get it started.  Innocent expression--as if he was innocent.  Bacon!  He was making bacon?!  He knew what that would do to Dean!--just like he knew what his ingenuous expression would do to him, and the fact that he was making them breakfast, and his big, pretty wings, and everything else about him.  Cas caught his eye, caught him looking at him, and smiled shyly.  Gah!  Look at that tease!

 

Cas wasn’t the only one who noticed Dean staring--when Dean finally looked away, afraid he’d leap up and rip Cas’s clothes off in another couple of seconds if he didn’t, Sam arched a sardonic eyebrow at him.  They had the silent conversation only people like the Winchester brothers who knew each other so well could.  Dean nodded his head insistently toward Cas.  Sam shrugged, very slightly.  Virginia, Sam’s girlfriend, now-wife, hadn’t even noticed their exchange of expressions, so she was startled when Dean burst out, “Come on!  Like you can’t see it.”

 

Sam glanced over at Cas, looked back at Dean, and shook his head.  “Looks like a guy making breakfast to me.”

 

“Looks like an angel making breakfast to me,” said Virginia, who knew everything about them and their hunter past, angels and monsters and demons and all the rest of it.  Sam had made the mistake of not telling the woman he loved about it once before.  He would never make that mistake again.

 

“As if!” Dean hissed, and leaned closer so maybe Cas wouldn’t overhear them.  Cas was sensitive and might take what Dean was saying as a complaint, but as mercilessly as Cas teased him, Dean wouldn’t change a thing.  Dean and Sam turned their faces to Cas, and Virginia poked hers above theirs, also watching.  “Look at ’im there, stirring the eggs all temptingly, and humming that classic rock he KNOWS I love, consulting that recipe with those wide, innocent eyes.  He’s deliberately doing all the things he knows make me go crazy!”  Sam and Virginia looked at each other.  Virginia giggled.  “What!” Dean growled.

 

“Next you’re going to tell us he digs at the dirt in his garden like a siren, and puts on sweats like a stripper (only in reverse), and generally does everything in the whole wide world as sensually as a nymph,” said Sam with an irrepressible smirk.

 

“Exactly!” said Dean, satisfied.  “You finally get it.”

 

Sam and Virginia gave each other a look and gave up the argument, amused.  Dean was too turned on to be irritated.  He looked back at Cas, just now fumbling with the breakfast sausages, narrowly avoiding flinging them all over the kitchen.  It was indecent!  Didn’t the guy have any boundaries, or did he enjoy tormenting Dean with desire while he did stuff that prevented Dean from being able to have his way with him?  It must be the latter.

 

“Virginia and I are going to a barbecue at her parents’ house today, so we’ll be leaving right after breakfast,” Sam announced, then murmured, “in the nick of time, too, sounds like.”

 

“Yes!”  Dean pumped his fist in the air.  Cas had a little shack out on the land where he had his garden, which was the place he’d been living when Dean first met him.  It hadn’t had a bed or a fridge or a bathroom when Dean met him, but Dean had been making improvements, since it was the only place they could get any privacy.  Dean liked living with his brother and his wife, the four of them all together here in Sam and Dean’s house, but sometimes a guy needed a place he could go with his angel where they could get as loud and wild as they needed to, you know?  So Dean had worked on the shack while Cas tended his garden, making it stronger and weather-proof, and he’d dragged a bed in there.  Still, it wasn’t his first choice, so having the house to themselves today was great news.  “I’ll give that fuckin’ tease what he’s begging for.”

 

Sam kind of shook his head at Dean disapprovingly, although Virginia looked even more amused than before.  “How exactly is he a tease when he says yes every time you ask him?  Oh--has it been a while again?” she asked sympathetically.  She knew how hard it sometimes was to get Cas in the mood for sex, once upon a time.

 

“We did it last night,” Dean said, and saw the sympathy vacate her face, then added quickly, “But yeah!  Yeah.  It’s been like ten hours!”

 

Sam rolled his eyes, also rudely unsympathetic.  Virginia put her arm through Sam’s.  “I’m so glad I ended up with the brother I did,” she whispered, but Dean heard it anyway.

 

“Well, Cas is happy he ended up with this brother!” he insisted defensively.  He hadn’t just ended up with him--Cas believed it was an insufferable arrogance for an angel to marry--but Dean had managed to talk him into marrying him, anyway.  Dean had the ring and the certificate to prove it.  “He thinks I’m the better one!”

 

Cas delivered two plates to the table.  “I like you both.  Actually, I like all three of you.”  He smiled that ridiculously adorable smile at the gathering of people he often referred to as his little family.

 

Dean leaped out of his chair.  “Cas, what the fuck?!  Why are you trying to seduce these guys, too?  No, no, no, I am not doing it with my BROTHER AND HIS WIFE.  Knock it off, man!  You can tempt me all you want, but not Sam and Virginia!  I know angels are all free love and whatever, but you’re all mine, got it??”

 

Cas got that irresistable look of bewilderment on his face as Virginia cracked up and Sam looked tired.  “Just ignore him, Cas,” Virginia said.  “Something’s gotten into him.  You could do dishes and laundry and he’d think you were a foul tempter.”

 

“Laundry?!” Dean cried.  “Holy--Virginia, why’d you have to bring up Cas doing laundry?!  All bending over ....  God!”  He clutched his hair.

 

Virginia looked at Sam, baffled.  “Is this an angel thing, or a Dean thing?”

 

Sam looked equally confused.  “I think it’s an angel-plus-Dean thing.”

 

“I thought the passion was supposed to start fading after marriage,” said Virginia scientifically.

 

Sam looked troubled at the thought.  “Hope not.”

 

“For humans, maybe,” Dean groaned, sitting back down, “but with Cas, it’s only gotten worse.”

 

As Cas went back to retrieve the sausages, now cooked, Virginia lowered her voice and asked Sam, “Do you think it’s possible Cas is really using his angel powers on Dean and ... doing something to him?”  They were beginning to look kind of worried.

 

Sam looked at Dean, knowing he’d heard the question.  “No,” Dean said sullenly, shoving a bite of insanely delicious eggs in his mouth.  “It’s just me being me.  You really ... you really don’t see what I’m seeing?”  They shook their heads sympathetically.  “I just can’t get enough of him,” Dean admitted, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and then studiously keeping his eyes off Cas as he finally sat down and joined them for breakfast.  That didn’t block out his maddeningly sexy low monotone voice with its warm tones that played Dean like a flute, or his magical words, every word given to someone else making Dean that much more jealous.  He’d thought marrying Cas would ease his desire somewhat, but as he’d just told Sam and Virginia, knowing Cas was really his had only inflamed it.

 

Maybe it was that there always seemed to be new horizons for them.  When Cas first became Dean’s friend, Dean had thought that would be it, but then he turned into a better friend than any Dean had ever had in his life, better than he’d ever believed a friend could be.  Dean thought that was as good as it would get, but then Cas had become his lover, which was alien and wonderful and more beautiful and satisfying than any romantic relationship Dean had ever had.  Dean thought that they’d surely reached the limits of what a romantic relationship could yield, but sex seemed new and exciting every time they did it, especially once Cas threw what they’d dubbed “angel sex” into the mix, which involved Cas touching his soul and merging their being, which was, if possible, even more fulfilling than regular sex.  But that couldn’t be it; it wasn’t the sex, really, it was just Cas.  Everything good and sweet and whole and healing came from him.  Dean wanted to possess him completely, consume him, make them so close they were practically the same person, and the only thing he’d ever come up with to attempt that was sex--which made sense, kind of.  It was the only time he had Cas’s full attention, and had him all to himself, and they were sharing everything each of them was.  He didn’t even really care what they did, so long as they were there together, talking and being real, and Cas was happy.  Somehow his brain (okay, maybe just his downstairs brain) had interpreted that to mean he was desperate for Cas every second of every day.  Not that he minded.  He WAS desperate for him every second of every day--any and every part of him, mind, body, and soul. Especially now that Cas had learned to kiss right, all he had to do was press his lips to Dean’s and Dean would abruptly be hard as a two by four.

 

As Sam and Virginia left, Sam pulled Dean aside to say, “Maybe you should ... you know, take a break for a little while.  He’s an angel, but you’re only human, Dean.  I don’t want you to ... overdo it.”

 

Dean snorted.  “What could happen?!”

 

“I’m not sure, but ... I don’t want you to be the one to find out.  I’m frankly a little worried for your health.”

 

“Thanks.  Just what I always wanted: my brother worrying about my penis.”

 

“Trust me, Dean, it’s not exactly a dream come true for me, either, but as your brother and the only other human man in this house, I felt obligated.  But if you want to wear it out, go right ahead.”

 

“Thanks, bro.  You always were right there, trying to get between me and sex.”

 

Sam looked exasperated, but amused.  “Fuck you, Winchester.”

 

“Bitch.”

 

“Jerk.”

 

Dean eagerly walked them to the door and saw them off, then turned back to face an oddly concerned Cas, standing right behind him.  Dean was thrown off by the expression on his face.  “What?”

 

“Your brother is concerned for your health because of ... me?”

 

“You were eavesdropping again?”

 

“I saw it in his eyes as he left.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes.  “Great.”  He lowered his voice conspiratorially.  “Well, ya know, poor Sam, he was a virgin until he was twenty-five, and he’s always been kind of scared of sex, so ....”

 

Cas regarded him quizzically.  Finally, he said, “I know for a fact that in no way resembles the truth.  Why are you--?”

 

“Fine, fine!” Dean interrupted.  “Such a stickler for accuracy.  Sam’s just thinking too much about my sex life again.”

 

“What does he fear?”

 

Dean shrugged.  “I dunno.  That it’ll fall off if we do it too much.”

 

Cas considered the possibility.  “Highly unlikely.  However, it is true that as an angel I can handle a good deal more of many things than a human can without suffering any ill effect.  That is, what is painful to a human is not especially painful to an angel, and sometimes vice versa.  Thus, if your brother thinks we should, er, hold back ....”

 

Dean took Cas by the back of the head and kissed him deeply.  Cas used to be a terrible kisser.  He just didn’t get the point.  Only fondling his wings used to get him going at all.  However, now that he had figured it out, all it took to make him melt was a really heartfelt, passionate kiss, just like this.  When Dean looked in his eyes again, he saw that Cas was putty in his hands.  “What does Sam know about our sex life, really, Cas?”

 

“Very little, hopefully ...,” Cas responded softly, melting further as Dean snuck his hand up under his t-shirt and got a good feel of his perfect chest.

 

“What does Sam know about anything?” Dean murmured, removing Cas’s shirt.

 

“Well, quite a lot, on a great many subjects--”

 

“I was being a jerk,” Dean said, his lips brushing against Cas’s as he spoke, pressing their torsos together tightly.  “It was a joke.  Sam may know a lot about a lot, but he doesn’t know shit about us.  Is that safe to say?”

 

Cas was already falling into the sensual altered state he was usually in when they made love.  Suggestible, acquiescent, willing, vulnerable ... Dean could talk him into anything when he was like this, which made this conversation easier.  Though he was beginning to look like he’d lost track of the conversation, Cas nodded slightly.

 

“Good,” Dean breathed, stroking Cas’s cheek softly to make him lose himself further.  “That’s my sweet little angel.  So ... what say we get to it?”

 

He started fumbling with the tie on Cas’s sweatpants, but after leaning helplessly against Dean for a few seconds, Cas roused himself enough to say, “We should go to our room.”

 

“Why?  Sam and Virginia’ll be gone all day.”

 

“You tend to lose track of time.  Also, regardless, it is generally considered unseemly to make love on ... public surfaces, or so I am beginning to understand.”

 

Dean growled, and clutched Cas roughly to him in his frustration.  All the way across the hall, up a whole flight of stairs, then all the way down the upstairs hall to their room?!  How long was Cas going to keep putting him off?!  “Why are you torturing me like this?!  Don’t think I didn’t notice your flirtatious cooking and suggestive sausage and how fucking sexy you were there in my old sweats!  I know what’s going on, and I’m gonna give you what you’ve been asking for,” Dean said dangerously.

 

Cas stared at him blankly for a long moment, then he blinked and an obscenely adorable smile alit on his lips.  “A ... new trowel?”

 

Holding himself up by Cas’s shoulders, Dean hung his head low, trying to take in slow breaths.  “Cas.”

 

“Yes, Dean?”

 

“You are making me insane.”

 

Cas looked baffled.  “No trowel?”

 

“Get up the stairs before I throw you down on them and fuck you ’til you can’t walk.”

 

Cas glanced anxiously toward the stairs.  “Um ... I’m pretty sure stairs count as a public surface ....”

 

“GET UP THERE!”

 

Instead of heading obediently for the steps as Dean expected, Cas disappeared.  Dean was seized by the terror that Cas had abruptly decided he’d rather check on his garden or something and gone off to do that, as used to happen all the time when Dean was trying to get him in the mood for sex.  Dean raced up the stairs and down the hall to their room, where he was supremely relieved to see Cas lying docilely in bed, waiting for him.  Dean held his heart, catching his breath.  “You could have at least brought me with you, saved me the trip,” Dean complained.

 

“But you hate angel travel,” Cas said, confused.  “And it was only up a single flight of stairs.”

 

Dean growled low in his throat, but softened as he realized what was really bothering him.  “You scared me, Cas.”

 

“Why?” Cas asked innocently.

 

“I was afraid you’d run off to do something else.  Don’t go anywhere, okay?  I’m going to be getting you back ALL day long for all the tempting and teasing you did to me this morning.”

 

Cas seemed confused, but not afraid.  “Why would I tempt you, when you know I am always yours to do with as you please?”  Dean let out a deep groan, ran across the room and attacked him.  Cas always somehow said exactly the thing that most got him going.  “You know I would never do anything I knew made you unhappy,” Cas murmured softly as Dean gave him a passionate hickey.

 

Dean clutched Cas’s hair, waiting out the tears that suddenly sprang to his eyes at his words.  How could he help falling more in love with Cas every single day they were together?  “Yeah,” Dean finally managed to come up with something that sounded cool and in control.  “You’re not a dick like other angels, are you?”

 

Cas’s wings--the most expressive part of him--suddenly stopped moving.  Fuck.  “I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean murmured, stroking Cas’s head.  “Sorry.  I know.  You can say whatever you want about your own family, but someone else says it ....  Anyone who says a word against Sammy gets a fast punch to the junk.  I shouldn’t have said it.  I just remember Michael and Zachariah and all those junkless pricks, and I can’t believe you came from the same family as them.”

 

“Michael was my favorite brother.”

 

Dean drew back, stunned.  Cas’s expression was as impassive as ever, but somehow said so much nevertheless.  “You never told me that.”

 

“You prefer not to talk about him.”

 

“Still, though--you know you can say anything to me.”  Dean shook his head, still reeling from the information.  “Seriously?  He’s not just a dick with wings?”

 

“Michael ....”  Cas tilted his head, remembering.  “Michael was pure goodness.  Whenever I was confused about what the right thing was, I went to him, and he explained things so I could understand.  I never once doubted a word he said, until ... until I first touched your soul when you were in hell and I was able to see another perspective.”

 

“But he wasn’t nice, was he?!”

 

“Very nice.  One of the kindest of my brothers.  An archangel, never considering himself above helping one of his lowliest brothers?  He was the older brother humans long for.”

 

“What happened?” Dean could not help asking sardonically.

 

“He is no different now, but obedience to our father is paramount to him; he will suffer no disobedience, as we saw with Lucifer.”

 

“Yeah, talk about a dick ...,” said Dean, figuring they could at least agree on that scumbag.

 

“He was my second favorite brother,” Cas said flatly as Dean goggled.  “Until ... until he was cast away to hell.”

 

“What is there to like about him?!” Dean burst out, disbelieving.  He and Sam had encountered him a few times in another vessel.  He was terrifying and, obviously, evil.

 

“He was fun-loving, inventive, unusual.  Our father made all of us different, you see--rather like a prototype for humanity.  Apparently our father made him a little too unique, a little too willing to question what he’d been taught, but he still loved him too much to destroy him, so he simply ... made another place for him.”

 

“You still love him!” Dean exclaimed, unable to believe it, but he could hear it in his voice.

 

“He is my brother.”

 

Dean looked down.  Even when Sam was turning into a demon-blood-guzzling monster, Dean still loved him.  He would never stop loving him, no matter what.  “You miss them.  You miss your family.”

 

“Only sometimes,” Cas said, turning to Dean with an attempt at a reassuring smile, but Dean could still see underneath it the vast unknowable loneliness only Cas would ever know, the only angel left in the world after Dean, Sam, and their hunter buddies closed the gates of heaven, hell and purgatory in order to avert the apocalypse.  Already having fought on the human side, Cas believed he would surely be killed if he returned to heaven when the gates closed, so he remained on Earth, where he met Dean and they fell in love.  Dean, of course, would be forever grateful Cas stayed behind.  Cas too said he didn’t regret it, but sometimes he got melancholy.  He never talked about it, but Dean had always known that was what was behind his melancholy, so it was kind of a relief to hear him finally talk about it now.

 

“If you could talk to them, if you could see them now ... what would you say to them?”

 

“Nothing.”  Cas’s smile turned bittersweet.  “There is nothing to say.  I disobeyed.  Lucifer only refused to serve humans; I actively fought with them against my brothers and sisters.  I would be eradicated, without doubt.”

 

“But you were doing what you thought was right!” Dean exclaimed.  “And God made humans, too.  Couldn’t you explain what you thought and why--?”

 

“No,” Cas interrupted him.  “We are soldiers.  I mean, we call each other brothers and sisters, but really we are my father’s army.  When we were created, the word ‘coworker’ didn’t exist yet, or we might have gone with that one instead.  We aren’t brothers like you and Sam, related in any way.  We were each created individually.  The sort of love that exists between you and your brother is beyond my ‘family’s’ comprehension.  My superiors brook no disobedience.  They already tried to ... reprogram me, but the effort failed.  Besides, now, since remaining on Earth, I have broken countless other rules, marriage chief among them, also fornicating with a human, influencing and participating in human lives when there was no order to do so ....  The list goes on and on, but my crimes were already more than sufficient to condemn me.”

 

Dean scowled.  “With a family like that, who needs demons?  People who treat you like that don’t count as a family.  You deserve to be treated right.  You deserve to be treated better than anyone in the world.”  Dean hugged him close.  No wonder Cas was so humble and fearful.  He was an angel, so it looked different on him, but Dean had finally come to see Cas’s self-doubt as a form of low self-esteem.  Having a family like that sure could do that to you.  Dean would have thought that kind of thing only happened to humans, but apparently not.  “You have a new family now,” Dean murmured, nuzzling him protectively, though soon enough it turned more sensual.  “You’re with us now, Cas, and I promise, baby, I will always take good care of you.”

 

“By ... taking me to task for my imagined attempts to seduce you?” Cas said, smirking.  He was kind of almost getting the hang of a joke.

 

“You love it when I ‘take you to task,’” Dean growled, and then he couldn’t hold back anymore, not like Cas wanted him to hold back.  As desperate for him as he had been for hours now, Dean didn’t last long, but it didn’t matter; he could keep Cas going for hours upon hours, stroking his wings, and then, once he’d had a rest, Dean would be ready for another go. 

 

Still, no matter what they did, somehow Dean could never get enough.  He refused to see it as a problem, but the fact was that there was an unbridgable divide between humans and angels.  Dean supposed in his heart of hearts that what he so craved was to know Cas, inside and out, the way Cas knew him.  He loved listening to Cas wax on about whatever his heart desired, and he did sometimes for hours--usually about gardening tips; but occasionally about history--human, animal, or geological; mythology; linguistics; or religion.  Dean could sometimes barely follow him, marveling at Cas’s vast supercomputer mind that could contain and process in one minute more information than a human mind could in a lifetime.  Didn’t Dean seem like a puny little bug compared to the wonders Cas had known in all the eons he’d existed?  Cas had lived to see Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, and Einstein.  He’d seen every war, every civilization that rose and fell, every country born.  He’d seen humanity evolve from sea creatures or whatever they evolved from.  For that matter, Earth events probably didn’t even seem like much to him compared to whatever happened in other realms. 

 

So how could he have ended up here, in Dean’s arms, his own precious, beloved angel, letting him do to him all the delicious, unspeakable things he wanted to his heart’s content, pledging to be with him until Dean died of old age?  How could Dean possibly have gotten so lucky?  What went on in that amazing angel mind?  What thought process had led to the glorious miracle of his deciding to belong to Dean?  What exactly was Cas, anyway?  Dean, a simple human, was surely no mystery to Cas, but Cas was so vast and deep he was utterly unfathomable to Dean, and that left Dean with an emptiness he could never fill ... but one thing was sure: he would never stop trying, in the simple human ways he knew how to.  Right now, that meant pouring as much love into Cas--physical and emotional--as he possibly could.

 

He started as he always liked to, stroking Cas’s wings.  For whatever reason, he was the only one who could see or touch Cas’s wings; they passed right through everything and everyone else most of the time.  Cas had an explanation that had to do with something about the intensity of their connection vibrating on compatible frequencies, but Dean usually thought of it as something happened simply because he loved Cas so freakin’ much.  Sam and Virginia loved Cas, too--lots of people did--but not like this, not enough to see this most divine, magical part of him.  Dean had always found Cas’s wings awe-inspiring and magnificent, especially once he discovered what it did to Cas for him to fondle them.  He loved the way it made Cas kind of collapse, no matter what he was doing, like he was an instrument and Dean knew how to play him just right.  He loved the instant erotic groans it drew out of him.  He loved the way it turned Cas into his plaything.  Cas would submit to anything he wanted to do to him after a couple of minutes of wing-stroking.  Cas often wasn’t in the mood for sex, but just a little of this and he was ready for anything.

 

He got even louder when Dean started touching his body, too--wilder, writhing and bucking, but at the same time, even more Dean’s to do with as he pleased.  It had taken Dean all the time they had been together, but he’d finally figured out if he moved his hands over Cas’s wings really slowly and softly, it got him going even more than if he did it fast or powerfully, although sometimes Cas did shove his wing hard against Dean when he wanted it like that.  It would always be a mystery to Dean why it worked and what it made Cas feel; all Dean could do was to try to figure out from Cas’s reactions what really did it for him.

 

“Yeah, you like that?” Dean purred as Cas made strangled gasping sounds.  Dean was, oh-so-slowly, stroking his hand all the way down his wing, then returning to the base of it to stroke down a line below where he’d been before, methodically touching every last feather he had.  It was making Cas get downright out of control, nearly thrashing off the bed, and Dean grinned.  God, he loved life.

 

He kept Cas going like this, utterly mercilessly, for well over an hour, before finally making love to him again--or trying; instead, Cas frenziedly pushed him down, held him in place with his wings, and produced a bottle of lube out of thin air.  Dean was gonna go ahead and assume that meant Cas wanted to be on top, which was just peachy by Dean.  It was all peachy by Dean, especially as Cas started stroking him with those soft feathers in all the right places.

 

During a lull, Dean remarked on how touching all of Cas’s feathers had an even more extreme effect than Dean’s usual haphazard stroking did.

 

“Of course,” Cas murmured robotically, the power of normal-sounding speech drained out of him well before.

 

“Yeah?” prompted Dean, sliding up Cas’s body to kiss his mouth, careful not to touch his wings and thus bring the conversation to a premature end.

 

“Yeah,” Cas repeated.  “Each feather is attuned to a slightly different frequency of the universe, so each feather feels ... different from every other.”

 

“SERIOUSLY??  Holy crap; that would be like having thousands of different erogenous zones on your body!”  Dean grinned, imagining it.

 

“Millions,” Cas corrected, all the strength sucked out of his voice by their lovemaking.

 

Dean groaned, vicariously turned on by the idea, and started pitilessly fondling handfulls of feathers all over his wings, as Cas gradually lost the power even to move.  “So ... your wings are like ... giant satellite dishes,” Dean said thoughtfully, “and each feather is like a little one.”  Cas had talked before about being able to hear the host, back when the gate to heaven was still open.  Maybe this was how he did it.

 

Okay, he guessed Cas was right when he said Dean tended to lose track of time, because Dean was most irritated when he heard Sam’s car pull up in the driveway.  “What the hell?!” Dean squealed, just gearing up for another round.  “He said he was gonna be gone all day!”

 

“It’s evening,” Cas murmured, sounding sensual and spent.  These were some of Dean’s favorite times, lying in bed with the golden late-day sun gently lighting Cas’s face, naked together, touching each other whenever and however they felt like.  Cas’s wings slowly opened and closed, like a butterfly intent upon a flower, and Dean knew it was one of Cas’s expressions of greatest contentment and happiness.  Dean touched one of his wings, eliciting a soft, involuntary moan from Cas, and he withdrew his hand, not wanting to make Cas noisy now that Sam was home.  Instead, he simply marveled at those gorgeous wings.

 

“Baby, you have the prettiest wings in the whole wide world.”

 

“I have the only wings in the whole wide world ... at least, on a human form.”

 

“Still, I’m sure they’re the prettiest wings ever on an angel.”

 

Cas hesitated.  He’d once said angels were not vain about their wings, but Dean had begun to suspect he meant they weren’t _allowed_ to be vain about their wings, and now, in the shelter of the safety of his new life with Dean, he finally felt free to talk about them, at least a little:  “I never thought so; I thought of them as scraggly and sparse.  It was Michael who had the most magnificent wings of us all.”

 

Dean reached for one very carefully, just touching a fingertip to one of the soft, vibrant feathers, and still, even at this little touch, Cas couldn’t help but sigh.  He pressed his forehead against Dean’s cheek.  “Well, whatever you say, I still think no other wings could be awesomer than yours,” Dean said.  Dean was the only human who could see them, and even he couldn’t see them very well, since they appeared transparent.  Only in certain kinds of light--like right now--could he make out the individual feathers, their vivid blackness and shininess.  He was used to Cas and his oddities by now, even all the amazing things that he could do, but getting a good gander at his wings was the one thing that still sometimes filled him with awe.  “What’s it like,” he could not help but ask, “having wings?”

 

“I do not know what it’s like not to have wings,” Cas replied.  “To be honest, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for humans, that they don’t have them.  I suppose it’s only because flight is so fundamental to angels, but to have no choice but to move laboriously to one’s destination along the ground or in an airplane ... I mean, I enjoy it, when I get to travel with you, but otherwise, it would be dreadful and terribly boring.”

 

Dean grinned.  “Not when you’ve got wheels like mine.  Then it rocks.”  Still, he could get what Cas was saying.  For Cas to be pinned down would be to take away that sense of peace and freedom he had like the butterfly on the flower; it would be to make Cas no longer Cas.  “Yeah, that’s part of you: you can always fly away.  Just always come back to me, ’kay, baby?” he said, kissing him, feeling Cas melt into the kiss.  “Forever, right?  You’re mine forever.”

 

Cas’s smile was bittersweet again.  “I am more yours forever than you are mine forever,” he said wistfully, stroking Dean’s jaw, gazing at his face.  “I’ll be with you your whole life long, but you ... when at last you die and your soul goes to heaven, I’ll be unable to follow.”

 

“Aw, come on!” Dean said.  He couldn’t stand the idea.  “You can--can’t you--well ... we’ll spend the next fifty years figuring out a way to fix that, ’cos I ain’t spending eternity away from you, that’s for sure.”  It was unthinkable, for Cas to be stuck here on Earth, alone, away from Dean in heaven, Cas’s home to which he could never return ... all because Dean got him stranded here in the first place.  “Anyway,” he said, thinking of other times he’d been to heaven, “you know as soon as I got there, those dicks’d just put me back in my body so they could start the apocalypse again.  I’d be back here in no time,” he blustered, but Cas, never fooled, only smiled faintly and gazed at Dean like he was imprinting his face and this moment upon his mind for those days when they were finally, eternally parted.  Dean’s entire life would scarcely register as a blip on the eons Cas had been alive.  Did their days together that seemed so wonderfully endless to Dean pass in a flash for Cas? 

 

What would Cas do here, alone?  Jimmy once said Cas would have faded away like smoke on the wind if he hadn’t had Dean’s love to sustain him.  Now that Cas could no longer connect to heaven’s power, he had to eat and sleep like any person, and Dean’s love was somehow part of what kept him going.  Would he slowly fade and disappear without Dean here?  “We’ll open the gate,” Dean said suddenly.  “When I die, or right before I die or whatever, we’ll open the gate again, so you get your fix of heaven juice to keep you going.  Maybe you can even sneak in there with me,” Dean said with a grin, knowing Cas would unceremoniously shoot down that idea and not caring; they had a lifetime to come up with something better.

 

But Cas didn’t shoot it down, he only smiled his sad little smile at Dean and said nothing.  Dean had to change the subject.  “I tell ya why I’d want wings--one and only reason: so you could get me as hot and crazy, touching them, as I do you.  Know what I’m sayin’?”

 

A smile scattered the dark clouds over his expression from before, considering this.  “I would really enjoy that.  I could ‘take you to task’ for your pitiless stimulation of mine.”

 

Dean chuckled, but what remained unresolved from their conversation before seized him and he could not help but say, “But if you did disappear--Cas, if you died, your soul or essence or whatever would go to heaven, right?  So we could find each other there again someday?”

 

Cas seemed surprised Dean could not know the answer to this question.  Anticipating Dean’s reaction to the answer, his voice was uncharacteristically gentle as he said, “No, Dean.  Heaven is our home, the place we come from.  Just as a human doesn’t go to Earth when they die, angels don’t go to heaven when they die.  When an angel kills another angel, it is with the understanding that they are ending the existence of that angel, forever.”

 

Dean couldn’t help gripping Cas’s upper arms very tightly, couldn’t help the intense tone of his voice as he asked, “But--but then what happens to you guys??”

 

Cas quirked his head, considering.  “I’ve always imagined our energy dissipates throughout the universe to become parts of other things, as your bodies decay in the soil and get used for sustaining the life cycle of this planet.  But no one knows for certain.  I like that human bodies are recyclable.  I only hope that I, too, will be ... recycled when I come to my end.”

 

Dean felt his expression twitching.  He couldn’t control it.  All this was unthinkable.  Cas would live longer than Dean would, for sure, but Dean had promised to take care of him now that he had to live as a human, so Dean had to start thinking hard about ways to make sure Cas was taken care of after he was gone ... only it seemed so huge and impossible, so far beyond his puny human powers.  He only ended up freaking out for part of a minute before managing to get himself back under tight control.  Whatever; he’d done the impossible before.  Whatever it took, however difficult a task it might be, he would just have to work at it until he’d found a way.  There simply was no other option.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You keep saying my love is what keeps you going here on Earth, but could you be a little more specific?  You’re really not being too helpful, Cas,” Dean said, hauling a bale of straw from the trunk of the Impala so Cas could spruce up his backyard year-round nativity scene.

 

“Perhaps it would help if you explained to me why you keep asking me this,” Cas said, lugging cleaning supplies, since the holy family was fairly dirt-covered by now after a rainy summer, and two of the wise men under the tree collected a lot of bird droppings.

 

“I told you: I’ve got to find a way to keep you going here, you know, after I’m gone.”

 

“And I told you: It is something over which you have no influence.”

 

“You don’t know that.  Everyone said we couldn’t close the gates, but we did it.  The Winchesters always have a few tricks up their sleeves.”  Dean threw down the bale of straw next to the nativity scene and sat on it while Cas got to work.  It had never occurred to Dean how ironic it was that Cas doted so fondly over symbols of a family who not only treated him like shit but who actually would kill him given half a chance, but that was Cas: devoted and forgiving to the end, no matter what someone had done to him.

 

Cas set down his cleaning supplies and sat next to Dean on the strawbale with a sigh.  “Angels are love, Dean.  Because God is love.  Love is our essence.  Your love for me feeds my essence.  That you let me love and serve you in return allows me to continue to be an angel, in some respect, since that is an angel’s function.”

 

Dean was relieved.  “So all I’ve gotta do is find someone else to love you before I die, and we’re golden!” he said, getting excited.  “But not until I’m practically dead!” he said then gruffly.  “I’ll be so fuckin’ jealous.  But still!  Still, it’ll be worth it.  Just ... not until I’m already almost dead, okay, Cas?”

 

Cas gave him that wise, knowing smile.  “You say it like it’s so easy.”

 

“Falling in love with you is the easiest thing in the world,” Dean said simply.  “I’ll be beating ’em all off with a stick.”

 

“There has been no one to beat off,” Cas said seriously, while Dean chortled at his phrasing.  “Many humans look their whole lives for love and never find it.  In any case, our connection is in large part a result of my touching your soul and repairing it when you were in hell, which will never be repeated with another person.  It is all right, Dean,” Cas said, one of his strange smiles dawning on his face.  “I’m content to live only as long as you do and fade away thereafter.  It is so much more than I ever hoped for, so much more than my family believes I deserve.”

 

“No!” Dean snapped, getting up to pace, upset.  “So, what, my soul lives in paradise forever and you just--cease to exist?!  Fuck, no!  As long as you’re still kicking, there’s a chance we could be together again!”

 

Cas considered.  “That is true, I suppose.  But, Dean, every moment we spend together is impressed into the fabric of time.  It’s remembered by the universe forever, so even if--even were I to disappear and cease to exist, I would never really die.  I would go on existing in your heart forever ... right?”

 

“That’s not good enough,” Dean growled.  “I need you here, the real you, right here, with me, forever.  Period.  Okay?  Okay.  So: we just need to find someone to love you--later on--MUCH later on--and then you need to mess with their soul or something so you have that connection thing, and that’s that.  I’m sure we’ll fine-tune the plan over the years, but at least now we have something to go on.  And then you keep trying on this end, and I’ll keep trying in heaven, to find a way to get back to each other.  You cool with that?”

 

Cas seemed thrown off, but his eagerness to make Dean feel better about all this won out.  “Y--yes, Dean,” he stuttered.

 

“Okay, good.  Now, you need help with this thing, or can I mow the lawn?”

 

Dean mowed while he fondly watched Cas putter around his beloved nativity scene.  It really was a monstrosity, dolls of all different sizes in various states of disrepair representing the different characters.  A neighbor dog had gotten at the Jesus doll, which now had teeth marks in its head and right arm.  Cas even had an AT-AT walker in there, since he couldn’t find enough sheep.  Also, barns are dirty places, and Cas was all about realism, so it lacked any of the romantic sheen of most nativity scenes, focusing instead on the humble and the ordinary.  Still, it made Dean smile every time he looked at it, because it reminded him of Cas.  Sam and Virginia found it downright creepy, but it made Cas so happy, Dean couldn’t help but love it a little, himself.

 

Cas was still at it when he finished mowing, so he got a beer, sat in the shade and watched Cas clean, unable to help thinking it over and honing their plan.  Cas glanced up at him, into his eyes, which he did whenever he wanted to know what Dean was thinking about; angels could read your mind just by looking in your eyes.  When he saw what it was, he smiled, moving on to clean G.I. Joseph.  “Love is the most powerful force in the universe, Dean,” he murmured.  “Why do you think angels are more powerful than demons?  Demons embody hate and fear.  Angels are love.  Love can do anything.  Love can reach across time and space.  It can heal, it can renew, it can create.  It can overcome any obstacle.  It’s the fabric and the origin of the universe.  Never forget it.”

 

He said it because he could tell Dean was still fretting.  “Cool,” Dean said absently.  “Just gimme a love gun and I’ll blast through everything that gets in my way.”

 

Cas chuckled softly, though he looked a bit disappointed, like he could tell Dean didn’t really get it.  “Oh, Dean.  You think only in terms of guns.”

 

“Or knives.  Knives are good.  Fists are fine, in a pinch.  I’ve even been known to use a taser.”

 

Cas was silent for a while, cleaning and spreading clean straw around the nativity scene.  At last, he said quietly, “Some things, you can’t fight.”

 

Dean knew what he was trying to say.  Cas didn’t believe they could be together again after Dean died, didn’t believe Dean would find a way to save Cas.  Dean planned to spend their lives finding a way; Cas probably planned to spend it helping Dean come to terms with failure, but that just wasn’t how Dean rolled.  “I’ve spent my whole life fighting, Cas,” he said at last, taking a long swig.  “I don’t know any other way.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Sam and Virginia returned from shopping that afternoon, they suggested all four of them go out to dinner.  The fact was that Cas did way more than his fair share of the cooking, which made everybody feel guilty, but nobody else was in the mood to cook tonight, so going out to dinner was a good solution.  Anyway, Cas was always entertaining in a restaurant, asking the waittress about the most obvious things, taking forever to decide and then ordering something weird, marveling over the most commonplace items on the menu.  He was usually over the moon with whatever he ordered, although Dean didn’t think he’d ever been happier than he was with the green bean casserole he once ended up with, singing its praises nonstop for a good twenty minutes, attracting the notice of all the nearby patrons.  Having Cas around guaranteed that things would always stay fun.

 

Virginia picked a seafood restaurant, which treated them all to a detailed lecture about the different species of sea animal and the order in which they evolved.  Apparently Cas really dug sea life; Dean had never seen him this excited while talking about evolution.  He scarcely paused to give his order (trying to order sea slugs, then electric eel--not having consulted the menu--before Virginia and Sam quickly recommended shrimp and he accepted their suggestion, eager to get back to the discussion), before returning to a detailed timeline of the evolution of the mollusks. 

 

When the food arrived, Cas seemed baffled at the appearance of his shrimp, and then of everyone else’s orders, remarking that they seemed unrecognizable, as if he’d expected a pile of raw shrimp on his plate with no seasoning or vegetables or anything else.  “You each got a different kind of fish,” he noted then, looked at his companions’ plates each in turn.  “Don’t all the fishes taste more or less alike?  I always thought sea cucumbers looked delicious,” he said avidly.  He began to say something else, when his entire expression changed, and he sat up much straighter.  Dean saw his wings rise high above his head, almost as in triumph.  They looked different--much ... blacker.  In fact, if Dean didn’t know better, he’d say that for the first time ever, they appeared opaque.  “I ... I feel wonderful!” Cas exclaimed, then looked at his plate of shrimp, as if it was the cause.

 

Then Dean noticed Sam and Virginia staring, open-mouthed, at Cas’s wings, too, and he realized that, for some reason, suddenly he wasn’t the only one who could see them--which meant everyone else in the restaurant could see them, too.  They were in a booth with three walls, but surely it wouldn’t be long before they attracted some serious stares.  “Cas!” Dean hissed urgently.  “Your wings!  They’re visible!  Put ’em away!” 

 

Cas looked at him for a moment, flummoxed, then seemed to see what Dean meant more in his eyes than in his words.  His wings abruptly disappeared.  His eyes were darting around, as if ... as if perceiving things none of the rest of them could.  Dean saw Sam and Virginia glance at each other in alarm out of the corner of his eye.  Dean was staring intently at Cas.  “The gate,” Cas said in monotone.  “It’s open.  I must go.”

 

“Cas!” Dean yelled, grabbing at the space where he was a split second before, but he was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cas had been gone for hours.  The only missive from him was a cryptic text to Dean’s phone, which read, “They found a way through.  Headed for the other gates.  Will stop.”  He never really had gotten the hang of texting.

 

They’d taken turns praying, asking for Cas at least to stop by to let them know what the hell was going on, but still no Cas.  “Fuck this,” Dean finally growled.  “I know how to make him come home.”  He drove out to Cas’s property where there were no neighbors to hear him yell and threaten, and threw his arms up to the dark sky.  “Castiel!  You better get your ass home right now!  You once told me you HAD to answer my heart’s true wish, and I wish more than anything in the world for you to get here now!  NOW, Cas, you hear me??”  It was what he wished for more than anything, not least because he was getting worried.  ‘The gate,’ he’d said.  He couldn’t really mean the gate to heaven, could he?  Dean hoped he meant one of the other gates, because demons and monsters were way easier to handle than vengeful angels who wanted to make you into their skin suits, but his wings appearing, his saying he felt wonderful ... not to mention the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that Dean couldn’t seem to get rid of, all pointed in one direction. 

 

Dean prayed again, getting louder and cursing more and more, at last crying and begging.  “CAS!” he finally screamed.  “COME HOME!”  His voice echoed out over the flat, empty land, the wind blew through the weeds, the stars twinkled silently back at him, and Dean had never felt more alone.

 

He drove home, still praying, and slammed through the door to the house, where Sam and Virginia were waiting up.  Sam was on his feet as soon as he saw Dean.  “Call the other hunters,” Dean said, trying his very best to sound impassive, but he, at least, heard the quaver in his own voice.  “Something’s wrong.  We’ve gotta get to the gate to heaven and close that motherfucker up again--and do it right this time!”

 

“You’re sure it’s the gate to heaven?” Sam asked anxiously.  “Cas told you?”

 

“No.  Cas never came.  That’s why I’m sure.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Dean could not allow himself to think as he drove of the reasons why Cas would not come when he called.  He hoped against hope that it was just that Cas was very busy trying to close the gate or prevent the opening of another gate, but as time passed, that possibility seemed less and less likely.  Cas would always come to him, always.  Always.  Either he was imprisoned somehow, or .... 

 

If the gate to heaven was really open again, then surely the apocalypse was back on schedule and Michael or one of his flunkies would be popping in at any moment to try to force Dean to say yes to Michael.  He kept an eye out for angels appearing out of nowhere, but nothing so far.  He wished he could take this for a good sign, but somehow it felt like the worst sign of all.

 

Sam was with half the hunters, headed for the gate to hell, since the angels would have to get that one open to let Lucifer out if they really wanted to stage the apocalypse again, and why would they work so hard to get heaven’s gate open if that wasn’t their aim?  The rest of the hunters were on their way to heaven’s gate with Dean.  Truth be told, most of them were jazzed about having some world-saving to do again.  Dean might have been, too, once upon a time.  Now all he could think about was Cas.  His eyes filled with tears and he forced them down yet again.  He couldn’t afford to think about it.  He just couldn’t.

 

All the hunters with Dean caravaned the whole way, parked outside the Lubbock skyscraper that had been built over the gate, and gathered outside to decide who would go in first.  The streets seemed oddly deserted for a Monday.

 

“Me,” Dean said without hesitation.  “I go in first.”

 

“I’m with you,” said Bobby.

 

“Me, too--you need me,” said Anna.

 

Dean nodded shortly and headed for the loading door they used when they closed the gate the first time.  Between them, the hunters had all the materials for the spell, and Frank even thought he had a way to make it work better this time while they tried to figure out what went wrong last time and how the angels got through, so the rest of the hunters started gathering all the ingredients out of their trunks and making contingency plans.  Dean left them to it and went inside. 

 

It looked just like he remembered.  It seemed like yesterday that they’d closed the gate, and in fact, it had only been a few years.  The one reason they’d been so successful last time was the element of surprise--the angels didn’t think they had the means to do it, not knowing they had Anna--reawakened to her angel memories--on their side to feed them information, so they met with no resistance until the spell was almost finished.  They would have no such luck this time, not to mention that Anna was just now saying the same spell might not work twice, if they’d figured out how to reopen the gate.  They were heading down the stairs into the basement.  Dean turned back to ask if she had any better ideas, only to find she wasn’t there.  Neither was Bobby.  Oh, fuck.  “Anna?” he called.  It echoed up the staircase.  No answer. 

 

Dean could run out to the parking lot and try to warn everybody that the angels were already onto them, but chances were the hunters already knew that by now, and Dean probably wouldn’t make it out the door, anyway.  He took out his phone to send a text, only to find it on the fritz.  The way to keep everyone safest was to forge ahead.  He was the one the angels wanted.  If they got him, maybe they’d leave everyone else alone and let them go in peace. 

 

It was hardly the first time he’d walked into danger, into a trap, facing possible--likely--death, but somehow it felt worse than all those other times, even worse than the hellhounds, more ... hopeless.  Even more hopeless than that.  The thing was, he and Sam had determined never, ever to say yes to those bastards, no matter what.  They could torture him, kill him, whatever they wanted ... but he still wouldn’t say yes.  Sam had always been his Achilles heel, as Dean had been Sam’s, but the angels  needed both Sam and Dean to throw their apocalypse party, so Sam and Dean had nothing to lose, no matter what the angels did to either of them.  Although this could get bad, it couldn’t get that bad.  So why couldn’t he shake this feeling?

 

To his surprise, though he’d expected at least one or two junkless pricks to be waiting for him, the basement was empty.  He drew out an angel blade--one of several he had in his jacket--just in case, and crept between the boxes full of old files and accounting the businesses in this building innocently stored down here.  The sigils holding the gate closed--drawn on the wall, hidden behind stacks of innocuous-looking boxes--were burned away, and Dean was now sure the gate was open and angels were flooding into the world once again, wreaking havoc on human lives, determined to restart the apocalypse and decimate the world, or at least a pretty big chunk of it.

 

He proceeded through every corner of the basement, finding nothing.  Was it possible this wasn’t some kind of setup by Michael and Raphael, but was instead a new trick Gabriel was playing?  Baffled, he finally relaxed a little, turned and headed for the door, and then the angel blade fell from his hand and hit the cement floor with a loud clatter.

 

There, against the opposite wall, stood Cas, drooping, appearing exhausted.  Angel blades were in the wall beside him, as if they’d been thrown like knives.  Dean ran to him and cupped his face.  “Cas!  Oh, my God, Cas!  Are you okay??”  He looked him over quickly, and found nothing amiss.  If they’d thrown the angel blades at him, they’d missed.  “What happened??  Never mind; let’s get you out of here.”

 

He pulled on him, but Cas let out a yelp.  “No!” he cried, his voice rough and grating.  “Please ....”

 

“Cas!  What--?”  Something flickered against the wall, and then Dean could see his wings, as black and visible as before, only white light shone out of them in places--the places where the angel blades were impaled into the wall ... through Cas’s wings.  Suddenly Dean couldn’t feel his body.  “Oh, my God.”

 

Those bastards had pinned Cas to the wall by his wings, driving angel blades through them--the only thing that could stop an angel.  Dean’s vision swam red as he thought vaguely about what he would do to those sons of bitches as soon as he saw one.  First things first: he had to get Cas out of here, now.  He wrenched at one of the angel blades, but it was embedded deeply into the cement.  He braced one leg against the wall, then both, yanking with all his might, but nothing happened.  He thought he might have felt it budge a tiny bit when he heard an unfamiliar voice.

 

“I knew you’d come.”

 

Dean dropped to his feet and whirled to face whoever it was, drawing another angel blade from his jacket.  He didn’t recognize the guy, a young man who looked ... well, actually, he looked kind of like Dean.  “Let him go!” Dean shouted instantly, pointing to Cas.

 

The young man smiled, turning to walk a couple of steps, the very picture of relaxation and victory.  “Castiel tried to keep his association with you a secret, but when I saw it in his eyes ....”  He shook his head and laughed softly.  “I couldn’t believe it.  An angel, fornicating with a human--with my vessel, no less.  The impudence.  Castiel.”  He shook his head and tsked.  “Is there no law you won’t so shamelessly flout?”

 

“Michael,” Dean breathed.  Of course it had to be Michael.

 

“I suppose my vessel was already as thoroughly sullied as he could have been before you even got to him,” Michael went on, “but brother, truly, what has become of you?  You used to be so obedient, and now, you are a travesty where once was an angel who had the potential to become one of my most devoted officers.  You might even eventually have made archangel.”

 

Dean glanced back at Cas, who was only barely able to raise his face, lined with pain.  Dean took a step forward, brandishing the angel blade.  “You let him go, you son of a bitch!  Then we’ll talk!” 

 

Angels could disappear and reappear anywhere; Michael obviously didn’t consider Dean and his angel blade much of a threat.  Michael tilted his head, observing Dean scientifically, like a new species of animal.  “It is as you thought, brother.  He did love you enough to come for you.”

 

When Cas spoke, his voice was soft and pleading, with no thought for himself.  “Please let him go, brother.  Please.”

 

Michael smiled.  “But I did all of this to bring him here so that he would finally become my vessel, as has been the plan from the beginning of time.”

 

“He will never say yes,” Cas grated out.  From the weakness in his voice and the way he drooped, hanging from the angel blades, Dean guessed he’d probably been here pretty much since he left them at the restaurant.  Angel blades pinioning him to a wall were about the only thing that could prevent him from being able to come when Dean called.  He’d probably been trapped here like this all that time.  Dean burned with rage ... and guilt.  They could have come in the night, as soon as Dean realized the gate must be open, instead of waiting until morning to head out.  Dean could at least have come on his own.  Why hadn’t he??

 

Michael had the faintest expression of regret.  “Then I suppose there is no reason to let a rebel like you live any longer.”  Suddenly appearing right in front of Cas, he put his hand on Cas’s forehead.  Dean had seen powerful angels kill other angels this way.  Michael was as powerful as they came.  “Goodbye, brother.”

 

“NO!” Dean yelled, coming at Michael’s back with the angel blade.  Without even looking behind him, Michael caught the blade and swung Dean around, flinging him against the cement wall.  Dean ricocheted off it, groaning, his shoulder dislocated, but he didn’t have time to think about that now.  As soon as he was able to shake off the momentary dizziness, he raced over to get between them, only staggering slightly.  Michael amenably took a step back. 

 

Dean held his good arm out protectively in front of Cas, who spoke softly in his ear.  “Dean, leave now.”

 

“He’s gonna kill you!”

 

Cas sounded like he’d already considered every eventuality, already calculated every possible outcome, and made his decision.  He sounded like he’d already given up.  “I told you I would be destroyed.  Go back to your brother and live a full life, Dean.  Give my love to all our friends, and tell them I ... I am sorry I could not have helped you more.”

 

“You think I’m just gonna leave you here?!” Dean shrieked, still keeping his eyes on Michael.

 

“There is no other option.”

 

“Of course there’s another option!” Dean hissed.  “There’s always another option!”

 

Cas went on, unrelentingly logical and preternaturally calm.  “Michael will destroy me no matter what.    I am grateful for the love you gave to me.  Remember what I told you: it will never die; the universe will remember.  You will remember.  It is good.  It was good, Dean.  Thank you, for everything.  A love like that ... it changed you, it changed me.  It changed everything.  I have already lived longer than I was intended to.  I think I was created only that I might free you from hell, but I received so much in return.  God has been gracious to me indeed.  I am satisfied.  I feel complete, except ... I’m concerned for you and your needs.  You must find a new love.  You will, won’t you?”

 

“I was gonna find you love!”

 

“It was not to be, as our love was not meant to be, but it was anyway.  I’m happy, Dean.  Very happy.”  Dean couldn’t afford to turn around to look, but he could swear he heard a genuine smile in his voice.  “I was angel, and I was also human.  I loved, and I was loved.  It was enough.  It will give me all the joy I could ever hope for to see you walk out the door back to your life, knowing you will live it until the end.  Even angels don’t live forever.  I’ll die feeling joyful.  What more could anyone want?”

 

Michael watched their conversation curiously, watched Dean’s face work as he tried to fight back tears.  “No!,” Dean cried.

 

Cas’s voice was resolute, as if he already knew what would happen, as if he had seen the future, he only had to make Dean see his way clear to following the plan.  He entertained no doubts.  He had absolute faith in Dean’s commitment to forestall the apocalypse at any cost--he’d seen that commitment, first-hand.  Besides, his logic was unassailable.  What made the tears stream down Dean’s face was hearing in his voice that Cas truly believed the cost of his own life was minor and easily given--and that Dean wouldn’t hesitate to pay it.  “It’s the only choice.”

 

“It’s not a choice I can make!”  He and Sam had promised, but he hadn’t met Cas yet when they made that promise, hadn’t fallen in love.  They hadn’t factored Cas into the equation.  He couldn’t do this, any more than he would be able to let them kill Sam if he said no.  They couldn’t kill Sam; they needed him.  But they didn’t need Cas.

 

“It’s the only one.”

 

“No.  It’s not the only one.”

 

Dean had an idea.  It was the idea Sam had had, the only plan they had, until they figured out with Anna’s help how to close the gates.  Sam was going to say yes to Lucifer and take back control, at least long enough to hurl Lucifer into the pit.  Dean could do that now.  He could take control long enough to save Cas.  So maybe they’d been able to make him say yes, but Sam would never give in, so they could still prevent the apocalypse.  Sam would be the one who saved the world; Dean had always known it would be him.  It was all up to Sam now.

 

He turned around to face Cas, and briefly kissed his slack lips.  Cas reacted belatedly, taken by surprise by the suddenness of the touch, lifting his head slightly and barely returning the kiss.  Dean put his lips right against Cas’s ear and spoke at scarcely a whisper.  “When I free you, you get out of here, you go somewhere they can never get you, and you stay alive.  I have a soul.  Michael can’t afford to kill me, anyway.  One way or another, I’ll be all right, but you--we’ve got to save you.”

 

As Dean drew back to nod intently at him, Cas stared into Dean’s eyes, his eyes widening as he read Dean’s intentions.  “You must not,” Cas said sharply, with more strength than Dean would have guessed he could command right now.  “You must not!”

 

Dean turned back to Michael, steeled himself, and looked him straight in the eye.  “Yes,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Dean was disoriented and confused.  Vast amounts of information flicked through his brain at a speed that rendered it all incomprehensible.  He could see dozens of things in different parts of his mind happening in different places at once; he could hear the voices of other beings.  It took him a while to figure out what part of his perceptions were himself, his body, the here and now.  It was Cas that brought him to it, the sight of Cas, helplessly pinned to the wall, staring intently at him.  He heard his own voice.  “That was truly very moving,” he told Cas, only it wasn’t him who said it.  “Such a devoted human would be quite useful--especially if he was a Winchester.  How did you make him fall in love with you?”

 

Cas cast his eyes down, the very picture of despair.  “There is so much you don’t understand, brother.  No one makes anyone fall in love.”

 

“Cherubim make people fall in love,” Michael said dismissively, “only I can see you are not inflicted with the mark of the heart, nor is this vessel.  So I don’t know what madness possessed you, but it seems perfectly in line with all your other insubordinate acts.  I really don’t understand why he said yes, but the Winchesters have always been foolish and incomprehensible, especially this one.”  He rolled his eyes irritably, as if galled that he’d been stuck with the worst Winchester.  “You even told him I would kill you either way.”

 

Dean’s heart broke at the expression on Cas’s face, a sorrow deeper than any a mere human could ever comprehend--but Michael’s words reminded Dean of his purpose, and he started worming his way back into his body, into being able to feel it and control it--now, while Michael was distracted.  “Even I can’t comprehend it,” Cas murmured, “but once I saw in his eyes that he meant to, I could not imagine him doing anything else.”

 

Michael easily pushed his arm back into its socket.  “This vessel,” he complained, “scars and old broken bones and poor nutrition.”  He swept his hand over himself, and sighed, slightly mollified.  “Easy enough to fix, but you would think he would respect me enough to take care of himself.  Why are you smiling?”

 

Indeed, a small, wistful smile touched Cas’s lips.  “Just ... he made up a word once, to describe what you just did.  It made me remember.”

 

Michael shook his head, baffled and not a little disgusted.  “Sentimentality, too, brother?  Are you entirely human now?  Is there no angelic nature left to you at all?”  Dean laughed softly as he infiltrated every part of Michael’s being, replacing it with himself.  Cas kept talking about how human he was now all this time, but he’d always seemed as much angel as ever to Dean.  Funny to think that to angels, he seemed human now.  “I will truly miss you, brother.  I always believed your innocence would be your strength.  Strange that it was your downfall.”

 

Cas said nothing in response, only hanging there. 

 

“I might even have allowed you to live and attempted rehabilitation once more, but marrying a human, Castiel!” Michael exclaimed, and Dean could suddenly see what Cas had been talking about all that time when he agonized over the crime he believed it would be to marry Dean.  Dean had always thought the whole idea it could be wrong was stupid.  He didn’t believe angels could seriously have such a big problem with it, but here was the proof.  “I would never have believed you capable of such wicked foolishness, Castiel--you, of all my brothers!  Even Lucifer would never have considered doing something like that!  What in heaven’s name were you thinking?”

 

Dean hoped Cas would renounce their marriage to Michael’s face; at least then maybe the angels wouldn’t be so determined to kill him the next time they saw him and he’d be a little safer out there, wherever he went to hide. 

 

Instead, Cas raised his chin defiantly and said, “I regret nothing.”

 

Michael snorted.  “You doom yourself.”

 

Cas lowered his head again, a grim smile twisting his mouth.  “Michael,” he said suddenly, as Michael picked up the angel blade Dean had dropped when Michael flung him against the wall.  “I will miss you, too.  I will miss most your compassionate nature.  You were always one of the very kindest.”

 

Michael smiled.  Dean could feel how it pleased him to have his ego stroked like that.

 

“If I may, I’d like to make one last request of you, brother,” Cas went on, “believing that in your great compassion, you’ll do as I ask.”  Dean wasn’t quite sure, but he figured Cas was stalling, giving Dean time to take control back, and Dean used every second he was giving him to strengthen his hold so he could keep control as long as possible once he took it.  All he had to do was get all those angel blades out of Cas’s wings; then Cas could fly away and disappear.

 

Michael stepped close to look in Cas’s eyes, curious.  Dean couldn’t follow Michael’s light-speed thoughts, but he did gather that he believed, whatever Cas was about to say, that Cas was utterly sincere.  “I’ll consider it,” Michael promised.  “What is it?”

 

“As soon as you can, release your vessel and allow him to go back to his life.  He said yes to you.  He has given you everything that’s his to give, and had everything else taken away.  You owe him that much.”

 

Michael thought it over.  “Once the final battle is complete, I should have no more need of him.  As long as things proceed as expected, I’ll fulfill your request.”

 

The last vestiges of tension in Cas evaporated; Dean watched him sink a little farther down the wall, and a genuine smile touched his lips.  “Thank you,” he whispered.

 

Things were definitely not going to proceed as expected, Dean thought with grim satisfaction.  Michael would probably punish him by refusing to let him go back to his life when all this was over, but it didn’t matter; all that mattered was that he get Cas free now.  Michael was moving toward Cas, holding the angel blade.  It was time. 

 

Dean felt his awareness in all his limbs, reached, and took back control of his body, knowing Michael would fight him as soon as he realized what was happening, but Dean thought he could keep control long enough to use Michael’s strength to yank those angel blades out of Cas’s wings and watch him disappear to safety. 

 

Dean tossed the angel blade Michael was holding aside ... or he tried.  Michael continued to advance toward Cas.  Dean tried again, getting anxious.  Again, nothing.  Michael chuckled.  “Your lover thought he had taken back control.  Is he always this amusing?”

 

Cas looked unbearably sad.  “He can be overly optimistic at times.”

 

Michael laughed out loud.  “I am the most powerful angel in all of creation, and he believed he could wrest control back from me?”

 

Cas’s forehead creased.  “Please don’t laugh at him, brother.  He is suffering.”

 

“I’m not laughing at his suffering.  I’m marveling at these Winchesters.  I expected so much more before I actually stepped into his skin and saw how little is really in here.  How can they be so dumb and still have managed to foil us so many times?  Unless ... is the other brother much smarter than this one?”

 

Cas looked like Michael’s cruel words caused him agony.  “They have ... other strengths.”

 

Ah, Cas.  Always so diplomatic.  Dean thought for sure Cas must be distracting Michael so he could take control, but though he tried harder and harder, tried everything, nothing was working, and he was getting pretty worried--way more so when Cas looked him in the eye and Dean somehow knew he was looking right at Dean now, not at Michael.  “It’s okay,” Cas said gently.  “It’s okay, Dean.  Don’t feel bad.  You must not feel guilty.”  He kept talking as Michael raised the angel blade, and Dean was fighting as hard as he knew how, harder than he’d ever fought in his life.  “It was such a brave act, to say yes to Michael.  I know how hard you’re trying.  You did everything you could.”  Michael put the point of the blade to Cas’s chest.  Cas scarcely even appeared to notice, using every last second he had to reassure Dean.  “Don’t be sad.  Thank you for our life together.”

 

“Goodbye, brother,” Michael said, and Dean felt Michael’s genuine regret at his brother’s demise.

 

“Goodbye, Dean,” said Cas.  “I love you, Dean.  I love you.  Never forget.”  This couldn’t happen.  It just couldn’t.  Yet Dean watched Michael plunge the blade through Cas’s chest, watched his lover explode like a supernova.  Dean stared in horror at the imprint of Cas’s wings on the wall--not aligned with Jimmy’s body where it had slumped to the ground, but where his wings had been pinned when the angel part of him had been obliterated.  Cas.  Cas was dead.

 

* * *

 

 

 

If Dean still had control of his body, he would have sat there on his knees beside Jimmy’s body for hours, days ... weeks, maybe.  Maybe he would never have regained the ability to function and he would have just died there, staring, if none of his friends ever came to get him. 

 

If he had started to function again--if Sam, say, or maybe Bobby, had managed to break through the vicious cycle of grief and guilt and denial and made him able even to think comprehensible thoughts--he’d have been undone by guilt and regret and rage and sorrow, useless as a hunter, useless to their friends, an embarrassment, but it would have been all he could do to make himself live through another day.

 

But Dean didn’t have control of his body.  He didn’t have the luxury of hiding away from thoughts or people he couldn’t face.  Michael was always there, always thinking, planning, acting, flying, always doing something, and Dean realized that probably snapped him out of it sooner than anything else could have.

 

It helped that the very being Dean wanted to rage at until he’d decimated him, to punish and wreak revenge on, was right there, stuck with him.  Dean didn’t hold back, raged until there was nothing left of him to rage with.  Michael had no apology for him, but he was not uncompassionate.  “I loved my brother, too,” he would tell him, and when Dean demanded to know how then he could kill him, Michael’s maddening logical responses about duty and purpose and capital crimes numbed Dean until he was almost as numb as Michael seemed to be.  Michael was not unkind, Dean discovered.  One of the only comforts Dean found there inside what was now the body belonging to Michael was remembering Cas saying how much he loved this, his favorite brother.  In an indirect way, Dean could be with Cas by being with the brother he most loved.  He could even get Michael to talk about Cas and tell stories about his days as a young angel, when Michael’s attention wasn’t taken up too much with other things, such as the angels’ efforts to open hell’s gate to free Lucifer.

 

For Michael was busy, commanding an entire army, single-handedly arranging an apocalypse.  They zapped everywhere all the time, between the gates, to heaven and back, with no break.  Dean had always hated angel travel.  It messed with his head and all his bodily functions.  He’d gotten to the point where Cas  could zap them somewhere once a day--maybe twice--and he’d be okay, but that was it.  He had no bodily functions now, but he still hated it just as much.  Humans weren’t meant to flick between dimensions like channels on a t.v.  As soon as he realized how Dean was suffering, Michael pushed him down into some other part of Michael’s vast consciousness where Dean didn’t even have to be aware of what was going on in the outside world, and told Dean he could do as he liked.  Michael would only need his attention, he said, if he had to access Dean’s knowledge or memories.

 

A long time ago, Cas had given his vessel his life back.  Dean had gotten to know Jimmy a little.  He’d asked him what it was like to be a vessel.  Jimmy had warned him how much it sucked.  The consolation for Jimmy had been the access to Cas’s tremendous angel powers, stuff like going back through history--all of history, even before humans were on the Earth.  Dean saw what he meant.  Michael had access to all of Dean’s thoughts and memories ... and likewise, Dean had access to all of Michael’s--Michael, who had been around to see the Earth cool, to see single-celled organisms form, that very first spark of life.  Michael also had memories of Cas, and though he’d never paid the naïve little angel much mind, Dean pored over these memories obsessively.

 

Another benefit of Michael’s immense power was that it could hone and fill out Dean’s own memories, make them so vivid they were almost real, so better even than going through Michael’s cool, distant memories was going through his own, reliving every moment he’d ever had with Cas, rewinding over the very best parts again and again.  Michael pitied him that he spent his time this way, but he allowed it, only getting annoyed when it was sex or their wedding that Dean relived.

 

Michael tsked at a particularly romantic intimate moment Dean was just going over again in slow motion.  “Shameful,” he said brusquely.

 

“Beautiful!” Dean shot back.

 

“Disgusting, you humans rolling around in your own bodily fluids and simmering in waves of emotion.”

 

“Good to know how you really think about humans there, buddy.  Wait, what was Lucifer’s crime again?”

 

“There is nothing wrong with humans engaging in these activities; it’s a vital part of how you evolved.  But to see my brother there, participating as though it’s his right to enjoy human graces!  I am glad now to know these memories of yours; it’s plain there was no hope for him anymore.”

 

A little piece of Dean crumbled.  It was agony to hear Michael dismiss one of his most priceless memories of such a precious person this way.  Michael took in this thought, this feeling, of Dean’s, and at last said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

 

“He was human!” Dean cried.  “I got him stuck on Earth, and what else could he do but be one of us?!  If you’re gonna blame someone, blame me!  Cas never did anything wrong.  He was so good!  He did everything right!  So why did you have to--why ....”

 

Michael’s tone was regretful but blunt.  “Any angel who would flout every law we have must be undone.  We tried to rehabilitate him and failed.”

 

If Dean could cry, he would be.  “What about me?  I’ve flouted every rule you’ve got, too, and you didn’t kill me ... much.”

 

“The power of a human is limited, but Dean, even you must be able to see that a being as powerful as an angel who won’t follow the rules is profoundly dangerous.  The havoc he could wreak, on Earth and in heaven ... I shudder to think.  If he were to collect enough power by nefarious means ....”

 

“But he would never do anything bad!  You saw him, how sweet he is--”

 

“His naivete was the most dangerous aspect of him.  Who knows what such a being could do in its ignorance.”

 

“You’re an idiot!” Dean cried, and refused to talk to Michael for a long time after that, even though, being inside Michael, he couldn’t help seeing his point, much as he hated it.  Still, it didn’t matter.  Even if Cas could do those things, Dean knew that as long as they were together, he never would.  He would never do anything he knew was bad.  As painful as it was to hear Michael talk like this about Cas, on another level, he felt a little bit better.  It made Cas’s death just slightly less intolerable to know that the angel who killed him truly believed he was doing the right--the only--thing.  As much as Dean disagreed over whether it was right, he’d done just about everything he’d ever done for the same exact reason--and with a lot less information than Michael.  He couldn’t help respecting it, a little.  He and Michael really were a lot alike. 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Dean was lost in more memories when he felt his awareness being forced to the surface.  He saw out his own eyes again for the first time in what he assumed must be a year, although it felt more like a hundred, but he figured it couldn’t be a hundred, or Sam would have died of old age by now, and Dean was pretty sure he’d have heard about it if such a big wrench as the death of Lucifer’s vessel had been thrown into the angels’ plans.  So he was baffled to see Bobby, and Anna, and all the other hunters they’d gone there with, in the parking lot outside the skyscraper, just like they’d been when he walked through the loading door.  Most of them were gathered around that door, trying to get in, shouting about how it was sealed shut.  Dean heard Bobby and Anna saying they’d been walking down the steps, right on Dean’s heels, and had suddenly found themselves once more in the parking lot.

 

“They’ve got ’im,” Bobby growled, but Dean could hear the anxiety under the gruff tone.  “Don’t matter; he’ll never say yes, but who knows what they’ll do to ’im before we can get to ’im.”

 

Dean could scarcely comprehend.  “What the--wha--  No time has passed??”

 

“I had many things to attend to, once I finally had a vessel, that were more important than dealing with these humans, so I’ve been availing myself of the fluidity of time, but yes, it has been only a little while since I took you,” Michael explained silently to him.  Then, using Dean’s voice and Dean’s body to do it, he addressed the gathering of hunters, behind whom he stood some distance away in the parking lot.  “The gate is open, and it will remain so.  It is heavily guarded.  Any attempt to close it again will result in your deaths.  I suggest you return to your homes and get your affairs in order, since you are unlikely to survive the apocalypse.”

 

The hunters turned around at his voice.  “Dean!” Garth exclaimed, relieved.  Dean saw the relief blossom on Bobby’s face, too, then quickly wither.  He knew.  Most of them didn’t, though, probably hoping against hope that Dean was just talking weird.

 

“What happened in there?” Rufus called to him.

 

“That ain’t Dean,” Bobby said, gruff voice lined with sorrow.  “How’d you git ’im to say yes, you bastard?” he shouted.

 

A murmur went through the gathered hunters as they realized that Dean had said yes.  They looked stricken.  Someone must have said it, then others were saying it: “Cas.”

 

Bobby heard them.  “You got Cas, didja?  That’s how you did it, threatened to kill ’im?”

 

“Castiel has been destroyed,” Michael informed them helpfully, “so you no longer have an angel’s assistance, which you know was your only chance of success, since we still possess Annael’s grace.  I would like to fulfill this vessel’s wishes and not have to kill any of you, but that will only be possible if you don’t cause difficulties.”

 

Dean saw the wave of devastation go through the crowd of hunters, blow after blow: Dean had said yes, Cas was dead.  Basically, two of the three lines of defense they’d had between them and the apocalypse were down in one fell swoop.  It really was all up to Sam now, Sam saying no, no matter what.  Only ... only now, Sam had Virginia.  Oh, no.

 

As usual, Bobby couldn’t hold back, even though it was about the stupidest thing he could do if he wanted to stay alive.  “You lying sons o’ bitches!” he shouted, lunging for Michael unarmed, held back by some of the other hunters.  “You tricked him into saying yes, and then you killed Cas anyway!”

 

“I have never lied to my vessel.  He knew before he said yes that I would destroy Castiel either way.”

 

Dean couldn’t bear the looks on his friends’ faces: the crushing sorrow, the despair.  Worst of all, the betrayal: they were standing right there, looking at the face of the guy who had betrayed them, and all for nothing.  Dean wondered for the millionth time if it would have been better if he’d said no and just let Michael kill Cas.  Cas would be dead either way.  He’d have gotten to die the way he said he wanted to: watching Dean walk back to his life.  But then, Cas wouldn’t have known how much he meant to Dean, that Dean was willing to try anything--anything--to save him.  No matter how he looked at it, Dean couldn’t see himself being able to make any other choice, but that wouldn’t matter to the hunters gathered here, wondering how Dean could have traded in the whole world for a failed attempt to save his man.  “Tell ’em I’m sorry,” Dean whispered.

 

Michael hesitated, considering whether he wanted to do as Dean requested, then said, “This vessel wishes for me to tell you he’s sorry.”  Spoken in Michael’s flat, unapologetic tones, it sounded hollow, worse than if Dean hadn’t said anything.  The hunters were still in the windy morning, stunned silent maybe.  This was the legacy Dean had left the world: the guy who screwed everything up and gave in and let the world end because he was an idiot.  Then again, that was probably going to be his legacy no matter what, so, no big surprise there.  Michael asked Dean silently, “Is there anything else I may tell them that might make them stand down?  I’m trying to prolong your friends’ lives.”

 

Dean looked at all his friends, at their faces, knowing he would probably never see any of them ever again.  Rufus, Bobby, Garth, Ash, Frank, Anna ... there was no such surrender in their expressions, no hesitation, no doubt.  Nothing anyone could ever say would stop a hunter from laying it all on the line to try to save someone else.  “No,” Dean sighed at last, and Michael flew away without another word.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I have told you many things about my brother,” Michael piped up one day, though each day felt like an eternity, and passing back and forth between short time periods as Michael liked to do in order to get more done in a day, Dean could no longer tell whether it was day or night, not like he cared anymore.  “And since the day you said yes, I have asked you for nothing.”

 

“What do you want?” Dean asked shrewdly.

 

“I wondered ... I have tried to be kind to you, Dean, I really have.  Have you perceived this?”

 

Dean couldn’t deny that was true, and he knew Michael heard that thought.

 

“I wondered if you might show me the kindness in return of telling me how I could convince your brother to say yes to Lucifer, once we open the other gate.”

 

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

 

“Dean.  You said yes.  There is no way out.  If I could trust you to say yes any time I had need of this vessel, I would release you now and then, but it was so difficult to get you to say yes the first time, you know I won’t be able to let you go until my purpose is fulfilled and the final battle has been waged between me and my brother.  You know angels are infinitely more powerful than humans.  You know we will never stop until the apocalypse is finished.  You can’t win.  And, as you have noted, the world doesn’t really seem to want to be saved.  Castiel was right; you do have other strengths, one of which is courage.  You were very brave to resist, and I understand why you did, misguided as it was.  But that time is finished.  It’s too late to resist now.  Allow the final battle to take place, and when I destroy Lucifer, your brother’s soul will be at rest in the fields of the lord, yours to follow, and the souls of all those who die in the apocalypse.”

 

It was hard to argue with Michael, especially now that he could barely scrape up anything he had left to live for, if Michael did ever release him.  There were times in Dean’s life when he’d have had a hard time arguing with this logic, anyway.  There was one thing he couldn’t ever do, though, not even now.  He couldn’t do that to Sam.  “Sorry,” Dean told Michael.  “You’re on your own.  But I’ll tell you now, he’s never gonna say yes.  Never.  I counted on it when I said yes to you.”

 

“Hm,” said Michael, pleasantly enough, but thoroughly unconvinced.  “Well, thanks for your input.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

When he lost himself in his memories of Cas, Dean could almost feel all right for a while.  Sometimes he recreated memories of Sam, especially when they were young and traveling around with their dad--when they were a family--but every memory he had with anyone else, no matter how fun, was also tinged with pain.  Only Cas had been able to make everything peaceful and joyful and beautiful.

 

When Dean kept wondering how time could seem to pass so slowly, Michael informed him that angels were able to think infinitely faster than a human being.  Dean’s thoughts were still slow compared to Michael’s and he couldn’t follow half of what went through the guy’s mind, but now he could follow some of it, unlike when he first said yes, and Dean realized he and Michael were melding a little, enough that Dean was able to access some of Michael’s powers, such as his lightning-fast brain.

 

The downside of this was that, after reliving every minute of the two years he had with Cas several times, he’d sucked all the joy out of it, memorized every second already, and it couldn’t distract him from the realities he had to face anymore.  Cas was gone.  Dean had said yes.  The angels--or even the demons--might find a way to make Sam say yes, too.  The world might end, all because of him.  Sam might die, and all their friends, because of him.  And Cas ... Cas had died, because of him.  If he hadn’t talked Cas into marrying him, Michael might have given him another chance.  There was one memory of Cas he worked hard never to relive, but now it began plaguing him: his last moments, his insistence that Dean not say yes, his crushing despair when he did, his knowledge that Dean would fail, Dean’s appalling and humiliating failure, the way Cas thought only of Dean right up until the end.  Dean couldn’t afford to get caught up in these kinds of thoughts, because the guilt and horror and sorrow tore into him like a hurricane and there was nothing he could do about it: he didn’t sleep, he couldn’t drink, nothing.  But as he ran out of other things to think about, he was finding he couldn’t stop the torment.

 

“No,” Michael said sharply as Dean got worse.  “Stop, foolish human.”

 

“I can’t,” Dean groaned.  “Cas ....”

 

“Castiel was only an angel,” Michael said dismissively, “a soldier, a messenger, a servant of humanity.  He existed only to serve heaven’s purpose, and he died serving heaven’s purpose.  No angel would begrudge such an honorable death, and you saw that Castiel did not begrudge it.  At least there was some decency left in him, something of angelic values; at least he did not shame himself by lamenting his own death like a human.”

 

“It’s my fault he was human,” Dean said, crushed under the weight of his despair.  “It’s because he fixed me in hell that he rebelled against you guys in the first place, and it’s because I closed the gate that he was stuck on Earth and had to become human.  I’m the one who talked him into marrying me; he was scared to.  It was me, all me, but he’s the one you killed!”

 

Without pity, Michael said sternly, “Perhaps that should have served as a lesson to you, not to close the gate, and not to ... liaise with inappropriate creatures.”

 

The only comfort Dean could find in this moment was his complete absence of regret for loving Cas, remembering Cas’s defiant insistence that he couldn’t regret it, either, whatever the cost, to either of them.  “I’d ‘liaise’ with Cas a million times more, no matter what it cost me,” Dean mumbled, “but ... not what it cost ... him.”

 

“How on earth did you fall in love with an angel?” Michael said, and Dean could tell that had been niggling at him ever since he first asked Cas, the day he died.

 

The answer to that question flashed unbidden through Dean’s mind: how they each became a part of the other as Cas remade his shredded soul in hell, how they met again when Cas was trying and failing to live as a human and Dean managed to save his life by loving him.

 

“Ah,” said Michael, understanding--or at least, he thought he did.  “Humans are motivated by necessity, primarily the need to survive.  It was your sympathy for his imminent death that motivated you to do whatever it took to keep him alive, including loving him.  Your mistake was in thinking of him as human and deserving of your sympathy.”

 

“You just stop right there,” Dean said, suddenly icy.  “Don’t you talk about him like that.”

 

“You never understood what he was.  He was an angel, albeit a broken one, vaster and simultaneously lesser than humanity, unworthy of human love, incapable of understanding it.”

 

In Michael’s coldly analytical way, Dean knew, he was trying to help Dean feel better by helping him believe the grapes were sour anyway.  All angels were emotionless and purely logical like that ... except Cas.  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Dean said, not even feeling the need to fight over it anymore, because he knew he was right and Michael simply didn’t get it, couldn’t get it, because he could never understand all that Cas had become.  “Broken for an angel, maybe--broken into being a human--or more like one, anyway.  The best of both worlds, human and angel.  He did love, Michael.  You don’t get it, because you don’t understand love, but ... he did.”

 

“Angels are love,” Michael said coolly.  “Of course I understand love.”

 

“No, you don’t.  Not human love.  Not like him.”

 

Michael hesitated.  Something about Dean’s absolute confidence shook his.  Angels--all except Lucifer, anyway--really did believe humans to be greater than they were.  Maybe there was some kind of power Dean had over Michael, after all.  Michael left the topic alone after that, but Dean could feel him observing Dean with new eyes now, trying to comprehend this thing that was simply beyond his comprehension and always would be.

 

For his part, Dean tried to figure out how he could use this newfound power against Michael to help Sam and the other hunters when it came down to it, but try as he might, he couldn’t see what it could accomplish.  All he’d managed to do was to make Michael doubt he knew everything about love.  He tried to make him doubt himself about the apocalypse, too--in fact, he attacked his confidence everywhere--but Michael was onto him and unsusceptible on every other subject.  Still, Dean kept at it, hoping for success, until Michael finally laughed at him.

 

“You really must be the most foolish human I’ve ever used for a vessel.  Your ancestors were superior to you, Dean.”

 

“Gee, thanks.”

 

“You keep fighting even when fighting accomplishes nothing.”

 

This was true.  Trying to fight Michael was like trying to fight a ghost with anything but iron or salt; it seemed to pass through him without his even noticing Dean had tried to do anything.  It was like Dean just couldn’t reach him, couldn’t touch him.  ‘If I can touch it, I can kill it.’  Dean remembered his own words from years before.  But he couldn’t touch Michael.  “I don’t know any other way,” he said finally.  Cas had tried to teach him another way, and failed because Dean wasn’t bright enough to understand anything but brute force.  It was like it was his tragic flaw.  All was lost because it was the only thing he knew how to do.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Dean went back through history, trying to find events intense enough to hold his attention so he wouldn’t dwell on all his failings.  Some of the most spectacular historical events could be riveting like an action movie, but since it was real, it felt more like some of his bloodiest hunts, and there wasn’t anything fun about that.  He went all the way back and watched the Earth being formed, imagining Cas there, seeing the same thing, trying to imagine how he would have felt, what he would have thought, what he would have asked his older brothers about.  There was nothing else to do, really.  Jimmy enjoyed this enough to want to fuse with Cas permanently, but it wasn’t Dean’s thing.

 

Dean became aware of a commotion as he felt his awareness being drawn to the surface again. 

 

“I don’t want you to have to see this,” Michael told him, “but I need to access your memories and knowledge of your brother to accomplish this.”

 

Oh, shit. 

 

Then there was Sam, and all the other hunters at heaven’s gate ... and Virginia--who’d stayed behind at home--flanked by two angels.  No.  No, no, no.

 

Dean gathered from Michael’s thoughts that the hunters had been tricked into believing the gate had been left unattended, and they’d hurried down here into a trap.  Dean saw Sam’s eyes move from Virginia to come to rest on Dean’s face, saw the agony in his expression, the disbelief, the betrayal, the horror.

 

“Your brother fears you will crumble,” Michael told Sam cruelly.  “And we are sure you will.”

 

“It’s okay,” Sam said softly.  “It’s okay, Dean.  I know why you said yes.”

 

“To attempt to save his angel lover Castiel, but Castiel was doomed.  However, your wife will be spared if you say yes now, Sam Winchester,” said Michael.  “We will take you to hell’s gate, we will open it, and then you will say yes.”

 

Dean was trying to shout to Sam--how she’d die in the apocalypse, anyway, not to make the same mistakes Dean did, trading in the whole world for himself--but Sam couldn’t hear him, and Dean knew his words wouldn’t make any difference.  Just like he always had, Sam was going to do whatever Sam was going to do.

 

“Oh, come on!” Virginia scoffed, “like I’m not willing to die to save the WHOLE WORLD?”

 

Sam’s face creased, looking from Dean to the angels holding Virginia to the other hunters, held at bay by two more angels.  Finally, he looked at Michael.  “Can I talk to my brother?” he asked quietly.

 

Michael hardly even hesitated.  “I will relay his words for you.”

 

Sam nodded seriously, peering into Dean’s eyes, as if trying to see him in there and failing, seeing only Michael’s cold ones.  “Did you think you’d be able to overpower him?”

 

Michael told him it was so.

 

“And ... anything?”

 

“No, nothing!” Dean said, trying to tell him how it was like standing at the foot of a mountain, pushing on it, trying to get it to budge.  Michael did a pretty good job translating, even though it was mostly his thoughts he relayed, not his words.

 

“Dean, do ... do you think I should just say yes?  I mean, I know you’ve thought about it before.  Is that ... is that how you want it, man?  Should we finally just ... end all this?”

 

Dean was screaming “NO!” at the top of his lungs, knowing all the while that Michael had the power to lie and tell Sam what he wanted him to believe.  He could feel Michael considering it.  Michael wasn’t a scumbag liar like Zachariah, but on the other hand, he was willing to do whatever it took to bring on the apocalypse, so he might make an exception.  It would be a hideous betrayal, but he would be able to justify it logically, like he did everything.  On the other hand, it wasn’t like Sam didn’t know Michael would probably lie.  He might be able to tell Michael was lying, especially if what he said didn’t sound like Dean.  Michael had to tread carefully, and he knew it.

 

At last, Michael said, “He says no, but in the absence of my father, I command the host single-handedly.  Every angel in heaven is under my command, and we won’t stop.  Your brother despises and suffers from being a vessel, but I will not release him until the final battle is over.  We will kill those who would help you, but we will never let you die, Sam Winchester.  Our power surpasses yours in every way.  Give up, spare yourself and your brother your suffering, and allow what must be at last to transpire.”

 

Dean could see Sam was caught, wavering.  “Tell ’im not to worry about me!” Dean told Michael desperately.  “Tell ’im to say no!,” but though Michael wouldn’t lie, he also wouldn’t volunteer to say something that would work against him.

 

Sam looked over at Virginia again, then back at Dean.  “And ... and you’d also let my friends live?” Sam said with a gulp.

 

Michael smiled approvingly.  “Yes, of course.”

 

Dean was screaming, fighting with all his might to take back control from Michael, whatever it took to stop Sam saying yes, fighting so hard Michael was disturbed, afraid he might somehow damage his soul, but it still had no effect.  Sam ... he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.  Dean had watched his own hands kill Cas; he couldn’t watch them kill Sam, too.  This was what his life had come to?  Devastation, and failure, and death?  Everything they’d fought so hard for, that so many hunters had died for, all for nothing?  He bitterly regretted saying yes to Michael, but he knew if he had it all to do over again, he’d just do the same thing, because he was Dean Winchester, and he couldn’t make another choice.  He’d do the same dumb thing again, over and over, for the same old reasons: love, and loyalty, and family.  He’d have thought those qualities would amount to something in the end, but they didn’t; heaven used them against him, and he was so easy to use, because those were the only things he cared about in the whole world.

 

He watched Sam’s mouth open, knew what he was going to say ....

 

And then there was Cas, standing in front of Sam, about to whisk him to safety, calling instructions to the other hunters for how to take on the angels in front of them.

 

CAS!  He was alive!  Love exploded from Dean’s soul, expanded to fill his whole body, then--he would swear--the whole universe.  A happiness so vast and pure it couldn’t be entirely his own--the kind of serenity he associated with angels, not humans--shot out of him in a blast wave as immense as that created when an angel died, only in reverse: something coming back together instead of tearing apart.  Dean took one step toward Cas, then another, and heard his own voice croak, “Cas,” reaching for him.

 

Cas, about to disappear with Sam, whirled around to look at Dean--no, at Michael.  No, at Dean. 

 

“Dean?” Cas asked incredulously.

 

Dean finally managed to stagger to Cas’s side and embrace him, this thing he’d longed for most for all the eternities he’d lived through without him.

 

Cas held him back away from him to look in his eyes, and Dean moaned at the break of contact.  “You have control?” Cas asked, unable to believe it.  Dean guessed it must be so.  He could feel Michael fighting and flailing inside him, but it was having no effect; it was like Michael couldn’t touch him.  “Hold him still!” Cas cried to Sam, who hurried to obey.  Cas stroked Dean’s face tenderly.  “This will hurt,” he whispered.  “I’m sorry.”

 

They lowered him to the floor.  Cas took out an angel blade and, with its tip, began cutting into Dean’s--no, Michael’s--wings.  Indeed, Michael writhed in agony inside him, and Dean sure wasn’t enjoying it, either, except that being able to gaze at Cas’s focused, frantic face felt like paradise after the agony of being without him for so long.

 

“What are you doing?” Sam demanded as Dean twisted involuntarily in his arms, gasping.

 

“These are Enochian sigils that will greatly weaken Michael, so that Dean can retain control.” 

 

At these words, the other angels, looking on in confusion, took action, but the hunters all had angel blades out now, and the angels didn’t seem to know what to do, with their commanding officer suddenly silenced.  Finishing with one wing, Cas started on the other.  “Anna!” he called.  “Here!  Make the sigils to close the gate!”  He produced a vial of his own blood from out of thin air.  Anna nodded and started desperately drawing on one side of the gate.  The other angels started fighting in earnest now, and Cas cried to Sam that he must focus on the task at hand and help him subdue Michael at any cost, that it was their only chance for success.  Sam just nodded.

 

When he was done carving the sigils into Dean’s wings, he ordered Sam to help Dean up.  It had been hard to walk to Cas before, but only because he hadn’t had control of his own body in so long he’d practically forgotten how it was done.  Now he felt as heavy as a neutron star, so heavy he couldn’t believe Sam could lift him.  “I’m so sorry, Dean,” Cas whispered, “but I have to hurt you again.”

 

Cas cut into his arm and started drawing an identical sigil with Dean’s blood on the opposite side of the gate from Anna’s.  “When we’re done,” Cas told Sam as he worked, “you’ll have to hold tightly to your brother.  The pull to go back through the gate is very strong; weakened as he is, he may not be able to resist.  Hold on as hard as you can.  Anna will help.”

 

Sam nodded eagerly, calling to Bobby and Gordon, who was the strongest hunter near enough to hear him, to help him, too.  “And Cas, you’ll be all right?” Sam asked anxiously.

 

“I did it once,” Cas said resolutely.  “I can do it again.”

 

“So we’re closing the gate again?  You think it’ll work this time?”

 

“I know it will work this time.  The blood of two angels, on this side of the gate, will create a seal that is unbreakable.”  Cas looked over at Anna.  “Is it finished?”

 

She nodded, eyes wide.  Cas, taking in the battle and seeing the tide turn in the angels’ favor, ran to her side of the gate and sent her back to Sam.  “Put his hand on the sigil!” Cas shouted over the melee.  “Hold it there, and don’t let him go!”

 

At the same time as Sam and Anna put Dean’s hand on the sigil made with his blood, Cas put his hand on the other sigil.  The gate began to close, just like last time, only now Dean could perceive each angel as it flew past him back to heaven, instead of just seeming like a powerful, violent wind.  He felt the nearly irresistable pull of heaven on Michael inside him.  It wasn’t just Michael; Dean craved to go, too, a desire far beyond the influence of reason or thought.  All he knew was that he was glad Sam and everybody was holding onto him, because for some reason he couldn’t remember right now, it was important to resist.  He could see Cas over there on the opposite side, could see it pulling on him, too, like a gravity well, and Cas persevering with his characteristic  unbendable determination.  Cas ... Cas, who was alive.  Dean wanted to stay wherever Cas was.

 

After what seemed like an eternity, the last angel passed through, the gate finally closed, and Dean sagged in his friends’ arms.  His friends, who were okay and wouldn’t die in an apocalypse.  His brother, who didn’t have to say yes.  And then there was Cas, smiling at him ... Cas, who once more existed in this world.  Dean felt himself being pulled under.  It didn’t feel like sleep; it felt heavier and more serious than that, into an oblivion he wouldn’t be able to climb out of--for how long, he couldn’t say.  Maybe forever.  He smiled anyway, looking into Cas’s eyes, because all that mattered was that Cas--Cas and Sam and everyone else--was still here, still kicking around to live another day, and Dean hadn’t screwed it all up in the end; he’d helped them make it right.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Are you sure it was a good idea to trap Michael inside him instead of just letting him go back through the gate?”  It was Sam’s voice, Sam blabbing about something-something; Dean couldn’t really bring himself to care what.

 

“There was no time to consider my actions,” Cas admitted regretfully--Cas!  Why did the sound of his voice make joy shoot through Dean like meteors?  “But upon further consideration, I think it was the best course ... perhaps the only one we could have taken, if we’re to be certain the gate remains closed.  Of course, Dean will be the judge of whether it was worth it, for him--”

 

“It will be,” Sam said with certainty.  “I know Dean.  He’s willing to do whatever it takes.  Besides, you said we might be able to blast Michael out of him sometime ....”

 

“Maybe, when Dean is stronger, but then Michael would be out in the world once more and free to attempt to reopen the gate, which would be far easier from this side.  He might be able to take your half-brother as a vessel again ....”

 

“Man,” Sam said.  “I still can’t believe we had a brother we didn’t even know about.”

 

“I will find him and bring him to you, once Dean ... once ....”

 

“Dean’ll be all right, Cas.  Nothing can kill him, I swear.  Well, not permanently, anyway.”

 

“I’ve healed him as much as I can, but the sigils ....”

 

“I’m fine,” Dean tried to say, but judging from the way the conversation went on without him, maybe nothing came out.

 

It must be a Sunday, because Dean could smell bacon cooking.  All four of them always had breakfast together on Sundays.  Dean must be in his and Cas’s bed; he could feel the incredibly comfortable mattress under him, soft covers brushing his face.  Mm, a Sunday morning with Cas ... wait, why was Sam in their bedroom with them?  Awkward ....  “I’ll go check on the bacon,” Sam said just then.

 

“You do that,” Dean said, because God forbid they should end up with burned bacon, but again, he hadn’t made a sound.

 

He heard Sam get up, felt him trip over some part of Dean, and aright himself, cursing.  Dean chortled, albeit silently.

 

“You’ll have to be careful of them,” said Cas soberly, “at least while they’re healing.”

 

“I know,” Sam grumbled.  “It’s just that they’re fucking everywhere all the time.”

 

“He had the largest of us all.”

 

“Still do,” Dean tried to quip, in stitches, but that made him finally start to wonder what the hell they were talking about.  What part of Dean had Sam just tripped over, anyway?  It wasn’t his feet; Sam was at his side, not his feet.  His hands couldn’t be dangling over the edge of the bed onto the floor, could they?  Highly unlikely.  It hadn’t felt like it was his hand, regardless.  What, then?  Oh, well; didn’t matter.  He heard Sam leave the room, which meant he was alone with Cas, which meant there was important Sunday-morning business to attend to, if he could just make his eyes open ....

 

“I’m sorry he hurt you,” Cas whispered.  Dean felt Cas’s lips very softly press against his own.  Okay, now he was awake.

 

“Didn’t,” he managed to mumble out loud.  “It didn’t hurt.  Felt kinda good, actually.”

 

He felt more than saw Cas’s intense jolt of surprise, which was too bad, because seeing Cas that surprised was a delightfully rare occurrence, another one to add to his memory book, to go over and over for ... when ... wait, what?  A pang of sadness and loss hit him hard, loss of Cas ... hard enough that he was able to make himself open his eyes and look into Cas’s precious face.  What was there to be sad about?  Cas was right here.  “Dean!  You’re awake?!”

 

Dean grinned.  Cas was still wearing his look of complete shock, so he could put it in his memory book after all.  Dean tried to raise a hand, but that was apparently way beyond him right now.  Man, what had they done last night?!  He felt like a ton of bricks were piled on top of him.

 

It didn’t matter, though; Cas kissed him passionately.  Yeah.  Sunday mornings. 

 

Dean heard Sam’s footsteps come running to the door of the room, and he managed to turn his head and grin blearily at Sam.  “Dean!” Sam yelled, launched himself across the room, and practically threw himself on Dean, hugging him as hard as he had that time Dean had ... well, died every day for a year or something at the Mystery Spot.  In his serious, stilted way, Cas was saying something about Sam being careful, but the Winchester boys were never careful with each other, and Dean wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Dean chuckled as much as his fatigue would allow.  “What the hell, Sammy?” he croaked, as Sam drew back to look anxiously into his face, as if to convince himself Dean was really awake.  “You act like you haven’t seen me in months.”

 

“Close enough,” Sam said, and renewed the hug.  Okay, so maybe the only thing better than being alone with Cas on a Sunday morning was getting to be with his brother, too.  Dean was trying to say something important, and Sam finally stopped hugging him long enough to say anxiously, “What, Dean?”

 

“Bacon,” Dean managed, sounding like a man crossing the desert, asking for water ... which was pretty much how he felt.  Jeez, how long had it been since he’d had any bacon?  Felt like an eternity.  “For the love of God, Sam, don’t let it burn.”

 

Sam cracked up and reluctantly let him go, shaking his head.  “Dean,” he was muttering as he left the room.  Even Cas looked amused.

 

Then Dean had a horrible thought.  He could barely move--which, okay, might bear thinking about at some point, as to how he’d ended up in this state, but he’d woken up feeling similar to this so many times in his life, it didn’t exactly seem pressing--but if he could barely move, how could he eat the bacon?!  He managed to express this to Cas--mostly by simply saying urgently “Bacon!” over and over--and Cas fondly assured him he would see to it that Dean got as much bacon in him as he could ever want, and Dean could relax again.  Mm ... bacon.

 

Cas was leaning over him, stroking his hair solicitously.  “That feels so good,” Dean sighed.  “So good.”  Seemed like he hadn’t gotten any of this in forever, either.  “Do more of that, please.”

 

“As much as you like,” Cas whispered, kissing him with such soft intensity--longing even--it drew a deep groan out of Dean.

 

“Lower,” said Dean.  Obediently, Cas touched his shoulders, very gently.  “Lower,” Dean said unhesitatingly, but Cas hesitated, then stroked his hands carefully down to his abdomen.  Dean just arched an eyebrow at him, and Cas got that adorable look of worried disapproval.

 

“Dean,” Cas scolded.

 

“What?” Dean asked impishly, undaunted.

 

“You ... you need to recover.”

 

Yeah, actually ... what was he healing from?  Nothing Cas had touched had hurt at all.  “Everything I want you to touch seems good as new.”  Then, suddenly, it all hit him: Cas, dying by his own hands, exploding in a burst of light bright as the sun; Michael starting the apocalypse; Sam about to say yes; closing the gate.  “Holy shit!” Dean gasped.  He fought to raise a hand to Cas’s face, to touch and see that he was really there again, in the flesh.  Seeing his intent, Cas took the hand he was trying to lift and pressed it to his cheek.  “Cas!” Dean cried.  “How--?  Did you fake it?  Did he not really kill you?!”

 

Cas’s expression turned somber.  “No.  I was dead.  And then ... I was back, alive once more.  Rehymenated,” he said, with a grin for Dean.

 

“Thank God,” Dean whispered, tears suddenly streaming down his cheeks.  “Oh, thank God.  Cas!  I--I tried so hard--”

 

“I know, Dean.  I know everything.”

 

“Cas, I’m sorry!--”

 

“I know,” Cas said, interrupting him firmly.  “Don’t apologize, Dean.  How can you apologize, for sacrificing yourself bravely with only the slimmest chance of saving me?  It was--it was the most selfless act--”  Now Cas’s eyes were brimming with tears.  Not only could Dean not bear to see him cry, but Dean also couldn’t really stand to hear Cas talking like Dean was some kind of hero.

 

“Yeah, well, I almost got us all killed,” Dean said gruffly.

 

“... And ended up saving the world,” Cas said, smiling at him sweetly.

 

“You saved the world.”

 

“The first time you closed the gate, you used the blood of two humans--yours and Sam’s.  But with the blood of two angels ... the only thing that could open it now is if an angel were to destroy the sigils from this side.  And since you and I are the only angels in the world ....”

 

“Oh, crap,” Dean grumbled.  Michael.  Yep, sure enough, he was still inside Dean, subdued for now, but watching everything closely, biding his time, waiting for his moment.  “Wait a minute--you were able to--to take away his mojo for good?”

 

“No,” Cas said, smiling mysteriously.  “His ‘mojo’ is intact.  Well ... yours is.  But I was able to permanently restrain him within you by ... by scarring your wings.”  The regret was plain on his face.  “I’m so sorry, Dean.  I know you must be in agony.  You will heal eventually, but ... it was the only way to accomplish all our goals at once.  Perhaps I should have tried to blast him out of you, but then we could not have closed the gate, quickly and definitively.  Was ... did I ... make the wrong choice?  There was no time to explain and ask your permission.”

 

“Of course you made the right choice, Cas,” Dean said simply.  “You always would.”  So Dean had an angel inside him now.  Bummer ... but he could’ve done worse than Michael, and it was such a small price to pay for saving the world.  “Wait ... ‘my’ wings, what?”  That was what Sam had tripped over!  Experimentally, Dean tried waving around his wings, even though he was lying on his back. 

 

“Ow!” he heard Sam shout from below them in the kitchen.  Dean snickered and flapped them harder, felt them connect, and then came the shout: “Dean!”

 

“Aw, this is gonna be fun,” Dean said happily.  Seeing his grin, Cas’s face relaxed.  Cas, Sunday morning, bacon, Sam, wings to flap at Sam, and a world that would keep on turning for a while--hopefully a good, long while ... Dean really couldn’t ask for anything more.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cas was right; it did take Dean a long time to recover--almost a month.  Truth be told, he was still feeling pretty weak, but no way he was gonna let on about that.  They’d finally let him get up and start doing stuff around the house.  This morning he was cooking them their Sunday breakfast, and they were continually offering to help, which was starting to make him mad.

 

“I’ve got it, okay?” he growled, serving up some eggs on plates for everybody and setting them down on the table before each customer.  Sure was good to see Virginia alive and in one piece and relatively untraumatized, at Sam’s side again.  Her first supernatural encounter sure had been a doozy, but after a few weeks’ uncharacteristic timorousness, she was almost back to her old self.  They were all pretty shaken by the whole thing still, so it was only natural that she should be, too.  She was fitting right into being a Winchester.

 

They let him serve breakfast, but then Sam got up to get his own orange juice.  “Hey!” Dean cried.  “I said I’ve got it!  What, you think I can’t handle a little orange juice?!”  Dean marched to the fridge, and as he grabbed the orange juice container out of Sam’s hand and whirled around to grab a glass out of the cupboard, he forgot about the whole wing thing and knocked Sam right into the refrigerator, off of which he ricocheted with a grunt.  “Oops!” Dean said, spinning the other direction to try to help Sam, only to knock Cas out of his chair.  Virginia just sat there laughing as Cas serenely climbed to his feet and arighted his chair and Sam scurried around to the far side of the kitchen table from Dean to try to stay out of the line of attack.  It would have been funnier to Dean if this hadn’t been the fourth time this morning that happened.  “Sorry,” he muttered, serving Sam his orange juice.  “But stay away from the wings!” he yelled.  Okay, maybe he was only yelling because he was embarrassed; it’s not like it was Sam’s fault that he’d been getting tossed around the kitchen since he got up.  “I told you how it is with the wings!  I don’t want my brother feeling me up like that.”

 

“Dean, how can I avoid them?” Sam complained.  “They’re huge!  Look at ’em; they fill the whole freakin’ kitchen!”

 

“Can’t see ’em,” Dean said shortly, sitting down and quickly stuffing his mouth with food to avoid another embarrassing topic: his massive, beautiful wings, at which Dean all too often found Cas--and even occasionally Sam--staring, agog.  He did twitch his wings, though, and was sure he could feel direct sunlight on one wingtip, which meant it must be going all the way through the wall out into the garden--this with him kind of trying to keep them folded up so they didn’t cause any more problems this morning.  Not like he had any idea what he was doing with his wings.  Cas was trying to teach him, but it was hard to have much idea what they were doing when you couldn’t see them.

 

“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Sam declared irritably.  “I can’t work around them if we’re in the same room.  Sometimes when we’re not even in the same room,” he went on, getting more annoyed. 

 

“I told you about the wings, Sam!  You better be careful if you don’t want me to be enjoying it in a really uncomfortable way.”

 

Sam shrugged.  “Not my problem.  You’re the one who went and said yes.”

 

“Ooh, harsh,” Virginia said, watching the battle, delighted, but this was pretty much all in a day for the Winchester brothers, who were happily tucking into breakfast, both well satisfied with the verbal tussle.  Okay, so he and Cas, fully recharged with the power of heaven, wouldn’t technically need to eat or sleep for quite a while, but no way was Dean missing out on breakfast food ... or lunch food, or dinner food, or pie, or cake, or well, actually, now that he was an angel, he could probably really put it away without suffering any ill effects.  He planned to test the limits of that as soon as he was better enough to fire up the grill and get to work.

 

Only when Dean got up for seconds and Sam, AGAIN, wouldn’t ask him to get him seconds, too, even though he was already up, was there another mishap with Dean’s wings.  Dean knocked him off-balance, Sam grabbed for something, anything, to keep him upright, and ended up getting two handsfull of feathers.  Dean was ready to scramble away and snatch his wings out of Sam’s hands, but he was arrested by the wonderful feeling of it ... but not the wonderful feeling he’d feared.  It wasn’t like Cas had always enjoyed Dean’s touch on his wings; there was nothing sexual or romantic about this.  It just felt like the same old brotherly love they’d always shared, only magnified and made palpable.  Actually ... Dean gently drew a wing between Sam’s fingers to taste the touch more precisely (Sam was trying to get out of their reach, but was pinned between them and the kitchen table), only to find that love was greater and deeper than he’d ever suspected.  Dean had long believed he loved Sam more than Sam loved him.  Sam had left him and dad to go to college, after all, tried to walk away from hunting and being an outlaw and everything their lives had represented--from his family.  Yet here it was, the love that made Sam able to see and touch his wings, and it was as abiding and complete as Dean’s love for Sam.  What Dean had always taken for disinterest was actually Sam’s feeling that his love for Dean, from the moment he first started toddling around, following the older brother he hero-worshipped, was a given, an absolute, unchangeable, forever.

 

Sam was spluttering, trying to shove feathers out of his face, when Dean spun around to grab him in a big hug.  “Aww, my little brother loves me!” he cried.

 

Sam was irked, but surrendered to the hug soon enough, maybe just because he still felt sorry for Dean because he was weak.  “Was there any way you could doubt it?” Sam asked coolly, baffled.  Dean looked in his eyes and saw the truth there, all these years of Sam’s total, unquestioning devotion.  There were good things about being an angel, after all, turned out.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Yes, some very good things indeed.

 

“I remember you once told me there was only one reason why you would ever want wings,” Cas announced later that day when they were alone in their room, sounding a bit dastardly.

 

“And I remember you telling me you’ve been rehymenated!” Dean said, right there with him.  “For--for real?  Are you a virgin again?” he asked, scarcely daring to hope.

 

“Jimmy was not a virgin when I took him, being married with a child, although of course I had never done ... anything like ....”

 

“So you’re more virgin than ever!” Dean crowed.  “YES!”  He was eagerly trying to get undressed, which was made much harder by his general fatigue and trying not to knock Cas around with his wings.  “How’s Jimmy doing, anyway?  I got even way more sympathy for the guy now, having been a vessel myself.”

 

He was arrested by the flash of sadness that passed across Cas’s face.  “He’s ... Jimmy is in heaven, where he said he wished to remain.  I came back into existence with this visage, but I’m the only one here, now.”

 

Dean was also kind of sad, though kind of happy for Jimmy, but why’d Michael have to go and kill him, too?  Dean could tell he’d thought nothing of it, like vessels were just there for whatever angels wanted them for.  Well, fuck that.  Dean never had any intention of being that kind of vessel, and hey look, he wasn’t.  “So it’s back to the threesome again, then, I guess,” he said cheerfully.

 

Cas seemed reminded of Michael then, and turned quickly to Dean, also working on undressing--never one of Cas’s talents.  “Are you aware of him?  Does he give you trouble?”

 

“Nah, he’s just pouting in the corner.  Waitin’, though.  He seems sure his time’ll come again.  What’d you do, anyway, to leash him up so good?  I mean, I know about the sigils, but why does he think they’ll wear off or whatever?  Will it heal up completely eventually?”  Dean shuddered at the thought of having to go through that again, but, you know, whatever it took to keep the world safe.

 

“No,” Cas said distantly, although he, too, seemed to have some concern that Michael might regain control of Dean someday.  “He is counting on the sigils becoming marred in some way.  One sigil would have been sufficient, but I wanted two just to be sure.  Only an angel blade or angelic power could scar the sigils into ineffectiveness, but it is possible; anything’s possible.”

 

“Well, come on, can’t we have a backup?”

 

“I could add more sigils, but it would weaken you terribly again.”

 

Dean sighed.  Still, better safe than sorry, and he could feel Michael’s unhappiness about the idea, so it had to be the way to go.  “Sometime.  Later.  Much later.”

 

“When you’re better.”  Cas crept up to Dean, touched his cheek, and looked into his eyes with that beautiful, agonized expression.  “I worried ... I worried you might never wake up, but Sam assured me you would.  How did you regain control?  It was impossible--truly; it never occurred to me that any vessel could overpower Michael ... though I suppose I should no longer be surprised when you’re able to achieve the impossible.”  A beautiful smile lit his face, and Dean saw there something he’d never seen before: profound admiration.

 

“Aww, don’t look at me like that,” Dean said, turning away and shucking off his jeans.  “It wasn’t me; it was you.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Just seeing you,” Dean said, and couldn’t help smiling at Cas in a way that went rather beyond merely flirty.  “You were right, man.  I couldn’t fight him, but love ... I dunno, it did something to him.  When I saw you, I filled with this huge, massive love, and he couldn’t touch me anymore.  But dude, you came back to life!  How’d you swing that?!”

 

Cas smiled serenely and set his folded pants on the bed.  He’d managed to get everything off but his button-down shirt ... which looked kind of funny, but purely, wonderfully Cas.  “I think it was the same for me.  I think it was you.  The other angels believed it was God, and they may well be right, but ... I wonder if it may be that you inadvertently used Michael’s tremendous power, and, in your love and longing, called back the parts of me into one whole.”

 

Dean grunted and kissed Cas deeply.  “That’s so hot,” he declared.  Cas smiled awkwardly, not seeming able to agree, but not displeased.  They crawled onto the bed.  Dean would deal with Cas’s shirt later.  “Know what else is hot?”

 

“What?”

 

“Seeing you all badass, appearing there at the gate and taking charge, telling the hunters what to do, taking on Michael ... wow.”  Dean shook his head and whistled.  “Ever since I met you, you’ve been so ... I dunno, submissive and obedient.  I’ve never seen you like that.  I liked it,” he admitted with a wink.

 

“Well, I am a warrior,” Cas said, “a soldier.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re so into obeying ....”

 

“That’s what a good soldier does.  And, among other things, we serve humans.  It was only natural to be obedient with you, as well.”

 

“Still, you’ve always been so unsure of yourself, and suddenly you seemed so confident.  It was sexy.”

 

“Well ....”  Cas appeared to consider whether he should say this, like he thought it would be wrong to, but then he cast aside his doubt.  “Angels are powerful, but humans are ... strong.  I’ve become much stronger, it seems, since becoming human.”

 

“Wow,” Dean breathed, putting his mouth against Cas’s.  “Used to be, you’d have been scared lightning would strike you or something if you said stuff like that out loud.  I thought angels weren’t allowed to brag.”

 

“It isn’t bragging,” Cas said, lifting his chin slightly, and Dean was reminded of when he defied Michael.  “It’s only the truth.  I’m sure Michael is disagreeing right now, but I don’t care anymore.”

 

“Yeah,” Dean chuckled, pulling the covers off the bed so they didn’t get them dirty.  “Guess after single-handedly calling off the apocalypse, you pretty much can’t get in any more trouble, since they executed you just for getting married.”

 

“Scarring Michael’s wings is my greatest crime yet,” Cas announced, without apology.  “But I feel no shame for any of it.  I don’t believe God wanted the apocalypse.  They say he walks the Earth.  If he does, does that not imply he likes it here?”

 

Dean grinned, himself impressed.  “I like the way you think,” he said flirtatiously, stroking up Cas’s hip.  “Guess I was wrong when I thought you would never get more human.  I mean, if you did, I thought it’d be stuff like, you know, figuring out how to get undressed, or maybe being a little less awkward socially, but instead, it’s this ... strength.  You’re wrong, though; Michael isn’t disagreeing.  Actually, he kinda admires you, even though he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t.  He can’t believe you’re able to think for yourself like this, and ... I think he’s jealous.”  Gazing at Cas with admiration, he reached for one of his wings, but Cas pushed his hand away, smiling just a bit wickedly.  “What?” said Dean, crawling across the bed toward Cas--he had to get some wing-action.  It had been far too long--this whole last month, Cas insisted on keeping the sex quiet and limited to just their bodies so it didn’t get too wild while Dean was under the weather.  “Hey, you said you’d let me do that again now!”

 

Instead, still smiling, Cas touched Dean’s wing.  Dean instantly crumpled with a loud groan.  All the love he’d felt out of Sam when he touched Dean’s wings that morning ... this was different--way different--because this time, it WAS sexual, WAS romantic and intimate and exotic and strange and intensely beautiful and all the things that made him and Cas as a couple so unique. He could feel Cas’s angelicness, so sublime and fascinating and incomprehensible, and he could feel his humanity, impossible and magical and lovable.  Most of all, he just felt his love--Cas, who embodied love and compassion more deeply than anyone Dean had ever known--radiating through Dean like he was a live wire.  With each new feather Cas’s hand passed over, Dean experienced a new facet of this love and wonder.  He finally understood how Cas could let Dean stimulate him like this for hours on end; Dean felt like he could never get enough. 

 

“Now, you always liked to add this,” Cas whispered, and touched his body at the same time.  That divine feeling collided with the earthly pleasures of sex and exploded through Dean with sensations he knew he wouldn’t be able to contain if he weren’t half angel now.  All those days when he’d envied the pleasure Cas could take and then take still more--Dean could never have imagined it was this awesome.  He was a quivering puddle beside Cas.  The power of speech and movement were beyond him.  He couldn’t do anything but submit to Cas’s merciless ministrations ... not that he wanted to do anything else.

 

The best part was that Cas knew exactly how he was making him feel, and exactly how to make it still better, his hands gentle against his feathers, which made it somehow even more intense.

 

“You are very loud,” Cas murmured.  “Let’s go to my shack.”  He put his fingers on Dean’s forehead, and they appeared on the bed in Cas’s shack.  Dean barely had his wits about him sufficient to realize the angel travel hadn’t bothered him at all--it seemed really normal and easy, actually--before grabbing Cas’s wing and beginning to return the favor.  Okay, so maybe it would be worth it to forego the bodily functions--now that he could--just for one day so he could focus on this.  Maybe two days.  Okay, maybe a few days.  He’d better text Sam and tell him not to expect them back for a while ....

 

 

~ The End ~


End file.
